s 



PS 1764 
.G82 Z5 
Copy 2 



STATEMENT OF THE RELATIONS 



r 



RUFUS W.^ISWOLD 



CHARLOTTE MYERS (CALLED CHARLOTTE GRISWOLD,) ELIZABETH F. 

ELLET, ANN S. STEPHENS, SAMUEL J. WARING, HAMILTON 

R. SEARLES, AND CHARLES D. LEWIS, 



WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO 



I THEIR LATE UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT 



TO HAVE SET ASIDE 



THE DECKEE GRANTED IN 1852 BY THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS OF PHILADELPHIA 
COUNTY, IN THE CASE OF GRISWOLD vs. GRISWOLD. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
PRINTED BY HENRY B. ASH MEAD 

GEORGE STREET ABOVE ELEYENTH. 

1856. 



tiriw''^ 






STATEMENT OF THE RELATIONS 



EUFUS W. GRISWOLD 



CHARLOTTE MYERS (CALLED CHARLOTTE GRISWOLD), ELIZABETH F. 

ELLET, ANN S. STEPHENS, SAMUEL J. WARING, HAMILTON 

R. SEARLES, AND CHARLES D. LEWIS. 



It "will readily be believed that I come before the public with any details 
respecting ray private and domestic affairs with extreme reluctance. But 
certain exparte statements lately made before the Court of Common Pleas, 
in Philadelphia, and repeated in the New York Tribune, the National Police 
Gazette, and other papers, in regard to myself and my family, and parti- 
cularly in regard to my divorce, nearly four years ago, from Charlotte Myers, 
called Charlotte Griswold, render it necessary that I should set aside all 
other considerations, and in justice to a wife whose happiness is dearer to 
me than my own, and children, for whom at the cost of life itself I would 
leave a name which they should remember without humiliation, disregard, 
while unable to overcome, the repugnance I feel to troubling others with 
my personal griefs, and ask of my few friends, and of those who have had a 
kindly feeling toward me as an author, a candid and thoughtful reading of 
the following narrative : 

In June, 1845, as is well remembered by the Rev. Herman Hooker, CD., 
by Mr, V. Holmes, who has just returned to this country from an absence of 
four years in the consular service, and by several others at that period 
residing with me at the Butler House, in Philadelphia, an anxiety, which I 
might, perhaps, have deemed flattering, was manifested by Miss Sally Myers 
and Miss Hesse Myers, two maiden aunts of Miss Charlotte Myers, that 
I should offer my hand to their niece. I ought rather to say, was mani- 
fested by Miss Hesse Myers, though felt, as I had reason to believe, by both. 
The whole family were of the Jewish religion, and enjoyed a respectable 
social position in South Carolina, whence they had recently arrived on their 
customary summer visit to the northern states. I was in ill health, and suf- 
fering great depression from a fresh and profound misfortune. Influenced 
by the conversations of Miss Ilesse Myers, much more than by my own judg- 
ment or feelings, I at length made through her such a proposal as she 
had suggested, and it was received as I was informed and knew previously 
that it would be. I may add, what I am ready to believe, that the feelings 
of the niece were not greatly concerned in the matter — that, with the con- 
sciousness of a peculiar misfortune of hers, of which I was altogether igno- 
rant, her action might have been different had her own principles of propri- 
ety been allowed to control her, and that, in all she did or suffered or 

iUBT9N HIST. COLLECTt0N 



[ 4 ] . 

assented to, she submitted herself to one or both of her seniors and protec- 
tors, with whom she lived, by whom she had been brought up, and who, 
much more than herself, were influenced, it is probable, not only by the 
common but sadly mistaken and unrefined idea that after a certain time of 
life it is essential to the proper estimate of woman that her state should be 
no longer a single one, but yet more by the desire — which was very kind, 
so far as it concerned their niece — of showing the world that rumors which 
had been circulated among her friends at home, as to a peculiarity of her 
case, had no influence upon the belief of others, elsewhere, and thus to prove 
that this peculiarity had no existence in fact. I do not aver positively that 
the aunts were privy to the reasons which should have made them discour- 
age and not encourage the alliance of their niece with any one. In the 
nature of things I could not be certified of their l^noidedge. But I do aver that 
I believe they had such knowledge, using the term in that sense in which it 
ought in a case of this kind to be used, in regard to persons of their standing 
and intelligence. I mean that I believe they had, at least, sufficient doubt or 
suspicion to suggest a very guarded action in the matter. The reasons of 
my belief I could state if it were proper; and, if it is alleged that my opinion 
is incorrect, I shall be happy to listen in the most private manner they may 
desire to their vindication, and to confess my error on being convinced 
of it. As I have already said, I refer more especially to one of them. I 
charge no further motives, than those above indicated, for in point of fortune 
Miss Charlotte Myers was more than independent, and, as I have said, her 
external circumstances at home were not other than respectable. 

On the first of August the Myers fiimily were in New England, and I was 
at the New York Ilotel. My indisposition to marry Miss Myers had in- 
creased with the opportunities for reflection which followed their departure 
from Philadelphia. In letters to her I had stated that, notwithstanding our 
engagement, I was desirous that she should consider herself entirely free 
from all obligations to me, and urged reasons for her reconsideration of the 
proposed union. In one of her answers, dated the Gth of August, she says : 

" You tell me in your last letter, and the one previou?, that I am still free ; what do 
3^ou mean ? is it that you are making a sacrifice for me ?" 

She notices the presumed objection that I do not love her: "few persons," 
she says, " can ever love each other perfectly till after marriage ;" yet adds, 
"act agreeably to your own feelings; consult your own happiness," Satisfied 
as I was, by better evidences than the revelation here made, both of her own 
feelings and of her knowledge of mine, I felt that the way was not yet irre- 
mediable, and that I could still retrace, without injury to either of us — with no 
discredit to Miss Myers, and with less consciousness of it myself than under 
ordinary circumstances would exist — the false step into which no inducements 
but my own emotions should have led me; and felt bound, from my regard 
for her happiness even more than for my own, to do so. I therefore wrote 
to her that an engagement entered into under such circumstances, and the 
fulfillment of which was urged upon grounds that in my opinion ought never 
to have influence in such affairs, could result only in unhappiness to us both, 
and begged her at once and forever to abandon all thoughts of the subject. 
I was summoned to Boston, and there the matter was discussed, with cold- 
ness, but earnestness, mainly by myself and the aunts. Though Miss Char- 
lotte Myers had written to me so distinctly that I might " act agreeably to 
my own feelings," it was now set before me that they had informed their 
friends in South Carolina of the anticipated connection, that they would 
therefore be placed in a most disagreeable position if I persisted in my refu- 
sal, and that I was bound in honor to proceed. I returned to New York, and 
was immediately followed by the Myers party. The morning of their arri- 
val, the 20th of August, the subject was debated across the table at their 
private breakfast. I heard the aunts and the niece, with attention, and, 



[ 5 ] 

rising, said, "I will leave you for an hour: if at the cud of that time you still 
claim a fulfillment of the engagement, you shall be satisfied immediately." 
At the end of the hour Miss Hesse Myers told me their views were un- 
changed : and I took a carriage and went for the l\cv. Dr. W. 11. Williams, 
who, in the presence of only the aunts, performed the marriage service. 

That night I discovered that the person to whom I was thus united had 
been bound, in honor and law, not to receive any man's oftcr of marriage. 
About 3 o'clock she passed from my chamber, into which she did not again 
enter, through an intermediate parlor into the room occupied by her aunts. 

Strongly doubting whether that of which I was now aware, had not been 
known and considered in advance by the aunts, as well as the neice, I dis- 
closed my purpose to have the nullity of the marriage ascertained and de- 
clared by competent authority. Uncertain how to act, and hoping that by 
a chancery decree or some other process a remedy might be obtained without 
publicity, I requested that the event might be kept secret until I could con- 
sult with counsel, and have time for reflection. The family consented, and 
I saw the parties already aware of the ceremony, and received from them 
promises of silence. A day or two after I stated my intention of proceeding 
to Philadelphia, and Miss Ilesse Myers told me her sister and niece would 
accompany me. Of what followed, I quote the unimpeached testimony of 
witnesses produced and sworn at the trial for divorce in 1852. 

Rev. Herman Hooker, D.D., being examined, testifies as follows: 
*'At the time libcllant, respondent, and myself, were all boarding together at the 
Butler House — which was from but a few days sul)sequent to the marriage, and up to 
the time of the separation — it was apparent to my mind that there was as complete and 
total a lack of cordiality between them as was possible. I have no belief that their 
manner toward each other was assumed. I knew the libellant intimately. I thought 
him in great distress of mind, and such, to my own knowledge, was the general opinion 
in the house. I heard this opinion frequently expressed by other boarders, both ladies 
and gentlemen. The libellant gave unmistakeable signs of great mental affliction. For 
my part, I feared that he would be altogether prostrated by it. He and his wife occu- 
pied separate rooms, and came separately to the table. There seemed to be very little in- 
tercourse between them. I never saw them together in the parlors, as far as I recollect. 
I had known the aunts previously to the marriage, and after the marriage there was a 
marked change in their demeanor toward the libellant : there was less cordiality than 
before." "About two or three weeks after the coming of the libellant and respondent 
to the Butler House they separated, by the respondent's leaving, accompanied by her 
aunts, as I understood, for Charleston, where they reside. This occurred earh^ in the 
morning. Libellant did not go with them. He continued at the Butler House some 
time after. It was my impression and belief that he was not present at their leaving, 
and did not accompany them to the cars. Several days before they left, I heard the 
aunts say that they intended to go, and would go, whether libcllant went with them 
or not. I understood them to mean by ' they' respondent and themselves." ''It is 
my belief that libellant and respondent have never lived together since that sepa- 
ration." 

Mr. Samuel A. Harrison testifies : 

"I boarded at the Butler House in Chestnut street, during the year 1845. I remem- 
ber the return of libellant from New York, with respondent and her aunts, and that 
they all boarded there. I believe that they returned two or three days after the mar- 
riage. I observed a seeming lack of cordiality in the relations of libellant and respon- 
dent toward each other, and I know that this was a subject of remark by others in the 
house. They occupied separate rooms. They never, as I saw, came to the table toge- 
ther. I never saw them together after their marriage. The libellant was evidently 
Buffering very great depression and anxiety. The appearance of such suffering could 
not have been assumed, but the feeling was real and sincere. The respondent left the 
house unaccompanied by the libellant. I know that the libellant was not present at 
her leaving, and did not accompany her to the cars. I had been acquainted with the 
libellant for about three yeai's pi-evious to that time, and my acquaintance with him 
has continued until now. Libellant was then residing at the Butler House. It was 
his home, and he continued to reside there a considerable time afterwards." 

Mr. Francis de II. Janvier testifies : 



I 6 ] 

"From what I saw it was my impression that the separation was a permanent one ; 
and I accompanied the libellant to the office of J. R. Tyson, where he went to ascertain 
if it could be made so, and to obtain information as to means of securing her estate 
to her." 

Hon. J. R. Tyson, LL.D., testifies : 

"The libellant consulted me in the year 1845 — my impression is that it was a short 
time after the marriage — to ascertain whether a divorce could be procured, and during 
the consultation expressed a desire to secure to the respondent all the property of which 
she was possessed at the time of the marriage. He said that whether he procured a 
divorce or not, he wished the respondent to have the estate secured to her, so that she 
could have the separate and exclusive enjoyment of it. I suggested that as the 
respondent's property was in South Carolina, the necessary legal instrument had better 
be drawn and executed there." 

By what means the marriage was first disclosed in Philadelphia I cannot 
tell. That I had married Miss Myers, however, and that the state of things'^ 
described by these and other witnesses immediately followed, was generally 
known among my acquaintances. The Rev. Dr. Ide, now of Springfield, 
Massachusetts, with the Rev. A. D. Gillette, noAV of the city of New York, 
called upon mo as personal and professional friends, and in a confidential 
interview I freely stated the cause of a separation so immediate and so abso- 
lute. I was one of the editors of the North American, and to the proprietors 
of that journal, Mr. George R. Graham and Mr. Alexander Cummings, both 
of whom still reside in Philadelphia, I also deemed it proper to confide the 
particulars of my misfortune. 

The testimony of Mr. Janvier and Mr. Tyson suggests the cause of my 
going to Charleston. Mr. Hoffman, one of the most eminent lawyers of this 
country, had drawn up for me a release of the property coming to my possession, 
but he, too, as well as Mr. Tyson, doubted whether it were not necessary for 
me to go to South Carolina that the conveyance might be incontestible. In 
correspondence with the Myers fiimily much anxiety was manifested on their 
part that I should acquiesce in the marriage, and maintain its outward pro- 
prieties; at least that I should make no attempt to have it set aside until 
after my proposed visit; and they besought me to bring, when I should 
come, my youngest daughter, whom they had frequently seen in Philadel- 
phia. I proceeded to Charleston early in January. On explaining my situ- 
ation to counsel, to whom I carried letters of introduction, I was advised 
that it would not be expedient to execute any release of property until I 
should myself be released from all marital obligations. The family ad- 
mitted the wrong that had been done me, but urged that as I had expressed 
a belief that I should never again marry, if free, I should permit this mar-» 
riage to remain undisturbed, and accept their efi'orts for the promotion of my 
happiness. It was difficult to decide what course to pursue, but I finally con- 
sented that if the niece would return with me to Philadelphia, where my pur- 
suits made it necessary that I should reside, and make that city her home, 
except during the colder months, I would submit with as good a grace as pos- 
sible to the disagreeable circumstances in which I found myself involved. 
Por several weeks there was, as I supposed, a general assent to this project. 
I sent for some of my pictures and books, and a suite of apartments was 
assigned for my exclusive use, to be closed except during my brief annual 

* The person with whom I had in this manner become associated, in her affidavit admits some 
material facts confirmed in the depositions of Kev. Dr. Hooker and Mr. Harrison. She says : 
_ " The said lluf'us W. opposing deponent's earnest solicitations, would not publish the said mar- 
riage, nor even permit the proprietor of the hotel to know it ; nor would he permit deponent to 
mention the fact to any of his friends." 

Here is a difiiculty, the very day after the marriage ceremony, which demands an explanation ; 
but she gives none. She says, indeed, that I declared "it would ruin me if the fact were known ;" 
but evidently if it had been a real and proper marriage, its publication would not have been dis- 
agreeable to me, for it is not pretended that there was any legal disability in the way of my marry- 
ing. The reader will not fiiil to perceive that no cause, except the one suggested in this narrative, 
would be sufficient to account for that disagreement and alienation which is thus admitted to have 
existed from the beginning. 



[ - ] 

visits. But I soon, found, or had reason to believe, that all these proceedings 
and shows of kindly feeling were designed merely to overcome my decision 
not to relinquish the control of the property, which, admitting the validity 
of the marriage, was now, in a legal sense, my own, unless I should myself 
be freed in some way from the singular connection into which I had been 
betrayed. I said, in effect. If I am to confess myself married when not mar- 
ried, I will at least retain the outward prerogatives of a husband. When I 
arrived in Charleston, the deeds, bonds, mortgages, &c., to which I was en- 
titled as the husband of Charlotte Myers, were placed in my apartment, but 
near the close of April, I discovered that those evidences of estate had been 
removed, and secreted from me. AVhen I requested an explanation, I was 
told that the person calling herself my wife had made up her mind that it 
was best to separate, altogether and forever, and that her counsel, Mr, J. L. 
Pettigru, would prepare a deed which would in effect be a divorce, though 
it would not authorise my contracting another marriage. I waited for the 
instrument thus prepared, under her own instruction, by her own lawyer. 
I am described in it as " Rufus AY. Griswold, of Philadelphia, in the state 
of Pennsylvania,^' and it 

" Witnesseth, that for effecting the arrangements with respect to their future life, 
•which the parties of the first and second parts have considered to be indispensable to 
their peace and tranquillity," 

T, the party of the first part, "grant, bargain, sell, assign, transfer, set 
over,'' &c,, " all and singular the securities for money, slaves, and real and 
personal estate of whatever description," which Charlotte Myers had pos- 
sessed before I became in any way connected with her, to Jacob Cohen, to 
have and to hold the same, in trust, for her " sole, separate and absolute use 
and behoof," during her natural life, and for her heirs afterward, as if she 
Avere unmarried. Of the contents or import of this deed I was entirely igno- 
rant until the three engrossed copies of it were presented for my signature. 
Discovering that a provision of $3000 was inserted for my daughter, on her 
becoming of age, I protested against it, but was told that some consideration 
must be mentioned to insure the validity of my relinquishment of the estate, 
and as this had occurred to the other party, and the preparation of a new 
deed would occasion a needless delay and expense, it was hoped that I would 
suffer the objectionable feature to stand, especially as I could at any time, 
in my capacity of parent, decline the money, or restore it. I sfgned the 
several copies of the deed, and immediately after drew up and placed in the 
liands of the other party an unconditional surrender of these three thousand 
dollars. A similar repudiation of this settlement was made in the Superior 
Court of New York, in 1852. Of course, therefore, its payment can never be 
enforced. Mr. Cohen was authorized to estimate the other party's actual indeht- 
edness to me, and upon examining bills made out in my name, for furniture, &e., 
fu'warded to her by merchants in Philadelphia, which bills I had paid, or was 
instructed to pa}*, and subsequently did pay, he delivered into my hands one 
thousand dollars. This sum did not equal my disbursements on account of 
the Myers family, but I accepted it as in full of all demands; and here I 
assert, as in the presence of God, that I never afterward received from Char- 
lotte Myers or any of her family, one dollar, and that every allegation in her 
affidavit referring to money, except only that which relates to the payment 
of this balance, thus adjudged to be due to mc, is unqualifiedly false. During 
the period of my nominal relation to her as husband, on her visits to the 
North, it is true that I occasionally accepted, but always with unconcealed 
reluctance, her invitations to breakfast or dine with her, but as my expenses 
at my own hotel were not affected by it, I derived no pecuniary benefit from 
her unwelcome hospitality, the motive of which was merely to induce among 
the persons with whom she was living an erroneous impression of the rela- 
tions subsisting between us. Indeed, my particularity even as to the small- 



[ 8 ] 

est appropriations of her property Tvas such as not unnaturally to arrest hor 
attention, as will presently be seen, though she herself was not always gov- 
erned by a delicacy in this respect which m}^ example should perhaps have 
inculcated. I beg the reader to believe that nothing except the temper and 
minuteness with which this subject is dwelt upon in the affidavit which this 
woman has been induced to sign, by persons Avho make use of her merely for 
the purpose of gratifying their own hostile and revengeful feelings toward 
me, would have led to an examination of those papers, which prove the entire 
incorrectness of what is advanced in that affidavit respecting any alleged use 
or acceptance by me of any portion, however inconsiderable, of her income. 
During the summer visits which she was in the habit of making to the 
northern states — visits scarcely ever intermitted before or since my acquaint- 
ance with her, for more than twenty years — I had not unfrequontly oppor- 
tunities to incur some expense for her gratification. Although I suspected 
the feeling by which the conduct of the family was induced was purely sel- 
fish, they were certainly kind to my little daughter, and I was glad to avail 
myself of every fit opportunity of evincing a grateful sense of their kind- 
ness.* In Now York, in 1851, she sent for me to recommend a physician t<» 
her. I mentioned Dr. John W. Francis, and she asked me to request him 
to visit her. I did so, he attended her constantly for several weeks, and she 
left the bill for me to settle. Being a Jewess, she wished me to send her 
the Jewish monthly magazine, " The Occident," and on my order, Carey tt 
Ilart forwarded it to her for about five years, charging it to my account. To 
illustrate still further the incorrectness of what is said in this affidavit re- 
specting money, I copy from two of her letters incidental allusions which in 
this connection have a peculiar significance. 

Under date of Charleston, May D, 1847, she writes : 

"I received 30U letter containing a five dollar note which I gave to Caroline. Thert; 
Tvas no necessity to send for any one to pack the books, and if there had been, though 
my interest is much reduced this j'car, I think I could have paid the necessary amount."' 

In another letter, dated simply "Sunday Afternoon," but vrritten, I believe, 
in 1848, she refers to a request for some service : 

** You seem to have a monomania about being under obligations to me. The throe 
dollars you sent for what only twenty-five cents will have to be paid out, I have added 
to Caroline's little hoard." 

My professed disposition as to the property ofthc other party is shown by 
the testimony of Mr. Tyson, already given ; and my acts in regard to it by 
the execution of deeds which transfer and secure it frozn my own possession. 
It is stated in the affidavit to which I have so often to refer, that 

* In illustration of what is here stated, and as an example of the perfectly civil hut distAnt 
style of the writer's correspondence with me, the following letter will be interesting to persoLs 
who have been sufficiently attracted to the present controversy to inquire with a spirit of candor 
as to its merits : 

"Charleston, 9th Jan. [1S4S.] 

'■'■Dear Mr. Grisivold: I have been waiting on C. for the last week to write you and thanic you 
for the books you sent her; but really she has so much to attend to that she cannot get the time 
She is now at school, but sends her love, and begs you to write her. My aunts de.sire to be remem- 
bered to you, aud thank you for the handsome boo'ks you sent them. Also receive mine, for the- 
beautiful one you sent me. I hardly expected a present from you since you have become weary 
of my corre^ipoudence, and do not write to me. I cannot even know whether you wish me to write 
to you or not. I write as little about myself as possible, knowing you care for nothing on earth 
but your children andyour books: yet it is right I should let you hear of Caroline constantly. 
Ben tliauks you for the clothes you sent him. Why did you not send a shirt, as I asked you (o 
do? Believe me, &c. C. A. G." 

The prime reason for maintaining a correspondence with the Myers family is disclosed in the 
allusion to my child. The "Ben" referred to was a favorite slave, and a very worthy man. The 
closing inquiry refers to a passage in a previous letter, in which I was inforined that, if I would 
send a pattern, "a couple of dozen finer shirts" than I could get in the North, should be made for 
me by the household seamstresses, and sent to me. My reason for declining the offer is indicated 
in the text. I was at all times, after the partial divorce executed in Charleston in May, IS-iO, un- 
willing to accept any favor whatever from any of the Myers family. 



L 9 ] 

"The said Eufus W. Griswokl was ahout disposing of deponent's means, in different 
ways, when a relation of deponent requested him to make over to herself the property 
of deponent. He at first refused so to do, but deponent's friends at last succeeded in 
inducing him to secure some of deponent's property to herself." 

The deed, which is on record, and can be seen, shows that I secured to her 
all her property, and I presume it will be admitted that even the entreaties 
of "deponent's friends" could not have affixed my signature to that deed, 
had I been disposed to withhold it. Any one in the least familiar with the 
great law authorit}-, Lord Coke, with whom, as a general scholar, I have 
some acquaintance, would have told the "lawyer" who claims that he drew 
up this extraordinary affidavit, that the law takes notice of "no conations 
and goings ahout,'' and that in this matter, not what I contemplated — which 
I know quite as well as he or his client — but what I did, of which the deed 
will speak better than either of us, is the onl}^ matter of any pertinence. 

After the execution of the deed above referred to I was compelled to 
remain in Charleston two or three days, waiting for the weekly New York 
steamer, and in this period had several conversations with Miss Sally Myers, the 
eldest of the two aunts, whose conduct toward me since the marriage had been 
considerate and womanly. The unhappy circumstances growing out of my 
connection with her neice were deplored b}' her, but she trusted I would 
maintain a reserve on the subject among my friends ; as a more complete 
divorce could be, with the views I had expressed as to my future life, of no 
benefit to me, that I would refrain from any action in the matter, at least 
for a few years, during which existing asperities haply might be forgotten ; 
and as the continued presence of my daughter in Charleston might silence 
disagreeable suspicions, that I would leave her under her own especial 
charge, and she would promise the most affectionate and faithful care of her. 
Such a course I readily promised to observe. Thus, with a sham marriage, 
and a half divorce, I returned to my literary occupations in Philadelphia. 

Before going south I had removed from the Butler House to Jones's 
Hotel; I now resumed my residence there, and continued in the house more 
than two years. Mr. Asa I. Fish, a lawyer of good standing in Philadelphia, 
and known to the profession generally as one of the editors of that useful 
periodical, " The American Law Kegister,'^ also became a boarder, and tes- 
tified on my bill for a divorce as follows : 

"I resided at Jones's Hotel with the libellant one year or eighteen months from the 
spring of 1847. We dined side by side, at the gentlemen's ordinary. I never saw his 
wife there. My knowledge of his domestic relations is somewhat limited. It seemed 
to be understood in the house, and among his acquaintances, that he was living in a 
state of separation from his wife. The character of the separation was not made known 
to me. It was a delicate subject, and was not much discussed." 

Although I never ceased to regard Philadelphia as my home, and kept 
domicil there, paid taxes there, and nearly all my pecuniary interests were 
connected with that city, where for fifteen years my principal publishers 
have been Carey & Hart, and their successors, Parry & McMillan, (four gen- 
tlemen among the most honorable and universally esteemed in the mercan- 
tile life of this country, between whom and myself during this long period 
of the most intimate business relationship there was never a syllable of dis- 
agreement or a moment's want of friendly confidence,) yet much of my time, 
for two or three years, was passed in New York, where I was occupied with 
a specific duty, the completion of which was to end my divided and partial 
residence there. This duty was the preparation of an extensive Biographical 
Dictionary, for Harper & Brothers, the contract regarding which was entered 
into sometime before I proceeded to New York to obtain temporary lodgings, 
with room for the accommodation of the books I expected to have use for 
in the execution of that work. For reasons unnecessary to state in this con- 
nection, the stereotyping of the Biographical Dictionary was interrupted, 



[ 10 ] 

after the completion of more than one thousand pages ; and in the autumn of 
1851, doubtful whether it would be resumed, I came back to Philadelphia, 
with the purpose of abandoning all connection with New York, and during 
the winter entered upon the editorship of a heavy work for Mr. Henry Carey 
Baird. I was engaged upon this, having advanced more than two hundred 
pages in the printing, when, in March, 1852, I commenced my suit in the 
Court of Common Pleas. 

In the meanwhile, the peculiarity and strangeness of my position exposed 
me to a thousand ungenerous suspicions. To a few friends it was known 
that I did not consider myself married in a legal any more than in a moral 
sense ; this was the opinion of Mr. David Hoffman and of other counsel ; 
but generally it was understood that I was living in separation from a wife, 
while the cause of that separation was of a nature that made frequent expla- 
nations of it disagreeable or impossible. I was never a man of society. 
Distrusting my abilities to please, compelled by my literary pursuits to almost 
unremitting labor, and fond of my books, few men have been as much addicted 
to seclusion, and few, I think, have been personally as little known. Yet with 
a small number, of congenial tastes and feelings, I have been intimate; and 
it is among my most pleasing reflections, now that I find myself led near the 
grave by a painful and incurable disease, that no one who was ever my 
friend has ceased to be so ; no one in whose house I was ever a guest, no one 
who has been an accustomed visitor at my own fireside, no one who has ever 
shared my confidences, has faltered in a trustful regard for me, or in kindly 
praises of me, during all the painful vicissitudes through which I have passed 
since that scene, so prolific of troubles, in which, at the New York Hotel, I 
gave my name to Charlotte Myers. Nevertheless, I could not conceal from 
myself that my anomalous relations gave plausibility to every calumny sug- 
gested by literary or other animosities, and were indeed themselves sug- 
gestive of doubts which were alone an endangering of good reputation. To 
the person next to myself most deeply interested in this subject, I frequently 
wrote about it, or, when I saw her, during her summer tours, conversed with 
her. I said, the public must see in her my wife, residing at least a consider- 
able portion of each year in my house, or whatever house should be commonly 
regarded as my home — that, although the essential relation we actually sus- 
tained toAvard each other was irremodia1)le, there must be an outward oliserv- 
ance of the usual proprieties of married life — or I must end entirely tlie pre- 
tence of our marriage, by some sort of unconditional separation. She would 
answer, sometimes, that "for the best husband in the world" she would not 
leave her aunts ; at others, that her income was insufficient for that display 
of splendor which alone in great cities secured consideration, while my more 
modest habits of living would not satisfy the tastes to which she had been edu- 
cated. She was content, as I was in no way burdensome to her, and by exhibit- 
ing me at dinner tables occasionally she could persuade her friends that there 
were no difficulties between us. to let things continue in the way with which 
we both had grown familiar. Her only care was to prevent me from seeking an 
absolute divorce. At one time she wrote that her aunts had made their wills, 
by which my daughter would be rich, and that she had made one, which I 
should see, securing to myself, if I survived her, and to my children, all her 
property. In another letter a different influence is attempted: she inquires the 
cost of an elegant rural establishment in the vicinity of New York, where her 
aunts and herself might spend the summers, and I should have home and au- 
thority. Her inquiries were answered, the subject discussed, and the family 
decided not to venture upon such an experiment. To any proposals of living 
with me, the answer, in one form or another, was always a refusal. 

The ostensible object of the recent proceedings rendered it necessary to 
allege, and to show if possible, that there had been no such desertion as is 
so clearly established by the testimony already quoted, and by other testimony 
on record; and the "lawyer" who prepared the affidavit jpublished in the 
Tribune, by some means induced his client to swear that I, 



[ 11 ] 

'■'While at the city of Charleston, sometime in the year 1851, wilfully and maliciously 
deserted, neglected, abused, cruelly and shamefully treated, abandoned and refused to 
live with deponent." 

Now, I was not in Charleston or in South Carolina during the year 1851, 
nor have I been there at any time since the spring of 184G, except in the 
earl}' part of 1849. Having conceived the plan of a work on American society 
in the age of Washington, I made an excursion which occupied nearly three 
months through the southern states, and was in Charleston and its vicinity 
about five days, one of which was spent at the Moultrie House on Sullivan's 
Island, with my literary acquaintances, W. G. Simms, LL. J)., and the Rev. 
William C. Richards. I proposed staying at the Charleston Ilotel, but the 
M3'ers fixmil}^ would not permit it. I accepted their hospitality with the 
greater pleasure because it gave me such frequent opportunities of seeing my 
child who was with them. Explaining the object of my visit, Miss Ilesse 
Myers, with the greatest kindness and politeness, accompanied me in the 
family carriage to the mansions of those gentlemen whom she knew, and 
Avho possessed such portraits or other works as I desired to examine. There 
Avas not with the aunts or the niece a single word incompatible with the ut- 
most good feeling. The charge of cruelty, referring to this or to any other 
time, if by cruelty is meant personal unkindness, or any unkindness other 
than such as was inevitable in an inability to display affection, I solemnly 
deny. I never treated the person making oath to the above statement with 
cruelty. There was nothing in her character, and less than nothing in her 
misfortune, that could inspire any other feeling than one of profound com- 
passion. Iler own testimony on this subject was given in a very express 
and particular manner to Dr. E. E. Marcy, in 1850, while she was at Bridge- 
port, in Connecticut. She heard there that I was ill, and wrote to this 
gentleman, my physician and friend, on the subject, paying me many such 
flattering com.pliments as it woukl ill become me to repeat, and explaining 
our relations by saying that a misfortune, with which heaven had seen tit to 
afflict her, had caused our separation soon after marriage, greatly to her re- 
gret, ])ut that I was the most generous of men in everything unconnected 
with this trouble. Having become acquainted with these particulars, when 
she arrived in town I went to see her, at her hotel, and repeated my offer to 
commence housekeeping immediately, in Philadelphia or New York, if she 
would join me upon doing so. I received the customary refusal. 

In her affidavit, published lately in the New York Tribune and the Police 
Gazette, it is alleged, in one place, that I lived with her, as her husband, for 
''three years," and in another, that I so lived with her " for and during the 
space of between Jive and six years !" In the same paper she is made to say 
that "the last Tvro summers she went north, ^' that is, in the summers of 1850 
and 1851 — in 1849 she did not come north at all — I "would not permit her to 
reside with" me, "or stay at the same house with" her; but in the preceding 
paragraph it is said, with entire inconsistency, that "the sixth summer after our 
marriage," which, as we were married in 1845, must have been the summer of 
1851, the last summer before our divorce, I "would come home sometimes at 
four or five o'clock in the morning, sometimes stayed out all night, and was 
generally absent four or five nights in a week !" With so little skill is this 
strange compound of malevolence and indecency put together. It is true 
that during the two summers of 1850 and 1851 I declined the exhibition of 
myself by her at breakfasts and dinners, and it is also true that during those 
two years I was never alone with her a moment. I called two or three times 
each summer, while she was in the city, and repeated to her, decidedly, that 
unless she would reside with me at least half of each year, I should apply 
for a 41vorce. These declarations were always made with kindness, and jus- 
tified by exhibitions of the necessity of my pursuing the course they indicated. 

A formal decree of divorce, on the ground of desertion, had been subject to 
my suit for nearly four years ; I had, however, refrained from obtaining 



[ 12 ] 

such a decree ; I dreaded the publicity which would necessarily be given to 
the proceeding ; I was unwilling to wound or offend any member of the 
Myers family, notwithstanding the wrongs I had sustained through their in- 
discretion; and but for the effect of the existing state of things, directly or indi- 
rectly, on my personal reputation, I should doubtless have refrained altogether 
from any attempt for a judicial vindication of my rights. 

Early in March, 1852, however, I addressed the other party at Charleston a 
letter, in which I endeavored to set forth clearly, but with gentleness and 
courtesy, the injury I had suffered from her- conduct, in reputation, in useful- 
ness, in happiness, and in my pecuniary interests ; and ended by declaring 
that unless she would make my home her OAvn, as I had so frequently urged 
her to do, I should take measures for procuring an entire legal separation 
from her. To this letter there was never an answer by the person to whom 
it was sent ; but her counsel, Mr, J. L. Pettigru, wrote me as follows : 

'' Charleston, March 16, 1852. 

'•Dear Sir: — Your letter to Mrs. Griswold, of the 12th inst., contained so much mat- 
ter that she felt the necessity of advice, and called on me, as a person already acquainted 
with the circimistances, which delicacy loould eoufinc as much as postihle to the knowledge 
of those who are interested. 

"1 am authorized to say that she will conform to your plan of divorce, by making no 
resistance, if the libel is confined simply to the charge of desertion ; on condition, how- 
ever, that your daughter be permitted to remain under the tuition and guardianship of 
herself and her aunts, not to be removed from their guardianship or control during her 
minority, unless with her own free will and consent. This condition appears to me so 
reasonable, in connection with the antecedent relations of the parties, that I anticipate 
no objection. I hope that everything may be satisfjictory in the winding iqy of this sin- 
gular domestic drama, and am, dear sir, yours very truly, "J. L. Pettigru." 

Although I deemed it necessary to impose conditions in regard to my child, 
which will be explained in another part of this statement, yet the wish of 
Mr. Pettigru that everything might be satisfactory "in the winding up of 
this singular domestic drama," would have been fulfilled to all the parties 
legitimately interested in it, but for the impertinent interference of others, 
actuated solely by enmity toward me, and of whom the two who have been 
most active and efficient confess this influence, with brazen effrontery, in 
declarations under oath, that they have not uoav, and never have had, any 
acquaintance whatever with the unfortunate woman whom, for their own pur- 
poses, that have aided in leading into such a melancholy exposure of herself. 

From Mr. Pettigru's letter it should not be inferred that there was any 
actual consent to a divorce. The Myers family knew that any opposition to 
my petition would but give notoriety to the suit, without preventing its inev- 
itable result ; and making it a satisfaction that I Avould bring it on the ground 
of desertion only, agreed that there should be no opposition if my complaint 
embraced but that charge. My bill of divorce was now filed, in such form 
as I was advised by counsel was proper in the case, and the writ summoning 
the other party, "setting aside all excuses whatsoever, to be and appear, in 
her proper person, before the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas, of Phila- 
delphia, on the first Monday of June, to show cause, if any she have," why I 
should not be divorced from her, was served upon her by the sheriff of 
Charleston, on the 31st of March, 1852, as is shown by the sheriff's return. 

I had previously been married. My first wife, Caroline Searles, a woman 
whose memory I cherish with the tenderest emotion, died in 1842, leaving 
me two daughters. Her only near relations were the families of an uncle, 
Mr. Waring, and a brotlier, Mr. Searles. These are wealthy men, but of 
pursuits, tastes, feelings, habits and associations, as foreign from my own as 
possible. They were kind to my little girls, and I was grateful, yet I seldom 
visited them ; I rarely went into any society ; it is remembered by the fam- 
ily in whose house I had lodgings, in 1850, that during that entire yenr I did 
not go out after tea probably a dozen times ; upon the AYarings I think I did 
not call for between two and three years ; Mr. Searles I visited more fre- 



L 13 ] 

quently ; he was the uncle of my children, and I did not fail to communicate 
to him everything connected with their interests. When I determined to ob- 
tain a complete separation from Charlotte Myers, therefore, I disclosed to him 
fully my purposes ; he was very inquisitive, but I answered his every ques- 
tion with unhesitating frankness. He said, "You will bo marrying again?" 
I admitted that I might do so, and in the course of a long conversation, 
remarked that I had for several years possessed the friendship of a woman 
whom I should be very glad to marry, though I had no reason for supposing 
that under any circumstances I couid do so. When I mentioned the name 
of Miss McCrillis he expressed surprise : he thought, he said, it Avould have 
been Miss Gary. Miss Gary had dedicated a book to me, and he had heard 
me speak of her with a degree of respect for her personal character and of 
admiration for her genius which I have never ceased to cherish. I replied 
that I fancied it would be very difficult for anybody to persuade her into a 
marriage, but whether I could win her or not, I had seen and read too much 
of literary Avomen to believe they were apt to make good housekeepers, and 
I was of so practical a disposition as to consider probabilities of this kind 
in choosing a wife. This slight and half-jesting passage, at the private table 
of a man thus connected with me, comprises all I ever said of marrying that 
distinguished and estimable person, whose name has so wantonly and with 
so utter a disregard of decency, been dragged into the affidavits published 
in the Tribune. I subsequently, upon the assurance of Mr. E, D. Ingraham — 
to whom I had entrusted my case, mainly because he had been familiar with 
all its history from my first acquaintance with the Myers family — that the 
granting of a decree of divorce on the first of July would be, under the cir- 
cumstances, but a matter of form and of course, ventured to communicate 
the conditional intentions I had formed on the subject to the lady referred to 
in my conversation with Mr. Searles, well knowing that she and her friends 
were aware that eminent law^'ers had declared my marriage Avith Miss My- 
ers void ah initio; that whatever its nature, a complete separation had 
existed from nearly the time of the ceremony, and that the initiated proceed- 
ings for divorce were regarded by me as technical, and resorted to as the 
only means of obtaining declaratory action in the matter. 

I soon after made the discovery, which ought not to have surprised me, 
that the families of AVaring and Searles, to whom I supposed the respondent 
in my suit was an entire stranger, had been for years her most trusted asso- 
ciates and correspondents ; that they had acted as spies upon my daily con- 
duct for her ; that Waring, with his daughter, Mrs. Lewis, had been on a 
visit to her in Gharleston when the sheriff of that city served upon her my 
complaint and the accompanying summons ; and worst of all, that my eldest 
daughter had been taught by these people to have no regard for my parental 
authority, and without my knowledge to receive at the house of Mr. Searles 
letters from the Myers family, directed to his care, and to ansAver them there. 
The suppressed but settled dislike long existing between myself and the 
Warings became noAV, of course, an unconcealed hostility, and the baseness 
and duplicity of Searles, Avho as a brother-in-law had sought and received 
my domestic confidences only to betray them in such a quarter, naturally 
excited my utmost indignation. 

As has been already stated, the other party was informed in March, 
1852, that the suit for divorce Avould immediately be commenced ; the letter 
of her counsel, Mr, Pettigru, shows that she at once conferred Avith him 
on the subject, and instructed him to Avrite me that no opposition AA'Ould 
be offered on her part to my obtaining the sought for decree ; and she admits 
in her affidavit, that the summons of the court Avas served upon her by the 
sheriff of Charleston, " but that she never opened or read the said paper, or 
any part thereof, nor did she know its nature or purport, until sometime in 
April, 1852." Noav, as the writ was served on the thirty-first day of March, 
and the next day Avas " sometime in April," this may be true ; though the im- 



L 14 ] 

portance or significance of the fact, if it is a fact, that she kept a writ, com- 
manding obedience two months after its service, an entire day, before read- 
ing it, is not very apparent.* In the following July she was in Philadelphia, 
and of course perfectly aware of the proceedings in the case, yet she re- 
frained from opposing my petition. In August she was at Schooley's Moun- 
tain, and, in her affidavit, declares that I "went there, disguised, with 
another person, for the purpose of obtaining her signature to a certain 
paper;" that I conversed with her there, and that, "chagrined and disap- 
pointed" at her refusal to sign the said paper, I " operated upon her fears 
to such a degree, that she verily believed" I " was that night plotting with 
the low people of the place to induce them to waylay her.'' Here is an 
assertion, on oath, of my presence at Schooley's Mountain ; it has not only 
the "circumstance," but many circumstances; the deponent sees me not 
only "disguised," a matter in which there might be room for misappre- 
hension with a nervous and sick woman, but sees and converses Avith me 
w^idisguised ; the object of my pursuit and the subject and substance of 
my conversation are given ; and when she goes to New York, I go after 
her. Now I was never, in the course of my whole life, at Schooley's Moun- 
tain, or nearer there than the line of the New Jersey railroad, not thus near, 
except in going over that road. If I was there, many besides the deponent 
must have seen me. It was summer time ; the place was crowded ; it was 
not long ago. AVhere are these witnesses? And the "other person" who 
was " with" me, where is he? He is not produced, or named, nor can he be. 
The mistake is not in the mere matter of place. The scene never occurred 
anywhere. She says I "wrote to her that I would take away the child, un- 
less she consented to a divorce." As she had already, through her covmsel, 
Mr. Pettigru, agreed not to oppose a divorce, it may be difficult to under- 
stand why I should demand her " consent" to one ; but that I ever wrote her 
any letter whatever, after that of March, in which I advised her of my in- 
tention to appeal to the courts, is simply untrue. If the pretended letter was 
written, let it be exhibited. The child referred to was my daughter, of whom 
she says she "had already been appointed guardian, by the Chancery Court 
of Charleston, without opposition from" me. She might have added, without 
my knowledge. 

Mr. Pettigru, the counsel for the other party, it will be remembered, 
states in the last paragraph of his letter to me the desire of the Myers 
family that I would permit my daughter to remain with them. In all the 
period since my visit to Charleston in the winter of 1845 and 184G there 
had never been between the respondent, or any of her kindred, and myself 
a single syllable of incivility. We perfectly understood our relations to 
each other, and in every conversation and every letter there had been 
the most unfailing and careful observance of courtesy. f Considering all 
this, and that the aunt, IMiss Sally Myers, had doubtless a real affection for 
her, I wrote to Mr. Pettigru, that while it would be very difficult, in my 
opinion, to justify to my acquaintances the surrender of the charge of my 
daughter to a divorced wife, not in the slightest degree related to her, yet as 
I wished to oblige the family in every manner possible, after having been 
compelled in the action for divorce so seriously to wound their feelings, I 
would consent to Caroline's remaining under Miss Sally Myers's charge the 
larger portion of each year, provided that no attempts should be made to 
proselyte her from the Christian to the Jewish religion, and that she should 
on no account whatever have any intercourse with the families of Mr. 
"Waring and Mr. Searles. This last condition was declined ; I sent for the 
child ; her surrender was refused; and now, that is, in the beginning of Sep- 

* This is according to the Tribune copy. A friend to whom I have shown a printer's proof of the 
above paragraph says that in the autograph of the affidavit it is distinctly written, " April, 1854." If 
this is so, I ana quite willing to rest the question of a woman's keeping such a paper, under such 
circumstances, unread, for two years, upon its mere probability. 

t See note illustrating this subject, ante, p. S. 



[ 15 1 

tember, 1852, learning that she was to arrive in New York with a party 
from Charleston, at a certain hour, by advice of the District Attorney and 
Mr. Richard B. Kimball, my counsel in that city, and attended by police 
officers, properly authorized, I took possession of her person, as she landed, 
and conveyed her to the house of a friend. I was inexpressibly pained to 
perceive how her natural affections had been obliterated. After two days, 
during which I had had no communication with the adverse party, or her 
friends, Mr. Waring called at the office of Mr. Kimball, and said he had 
some terms of " compromise" to propose, and, with Mr. Searles, would 
gladly call on me for that purpose, if Mr. Kimball would induce me to con- 
sent to an interview. I shrunk from meeting these persons. Their unwar- 
rantable interference in my domestic affairs, and especially their conduct in 
attempting to persuade my eldest daughter into habitual neglect of my 
authority, caused me to regard them with undissembled loathing. I never- 
theless promised to see them, the next evening, at Mr. Kimball's private resi- 
dence. Mr. Kimball was with me in the parlor when they entered, and he 
was not absent a moment until their departure. Every syllable that was ut- 
tered was heard by him. Mr. Waring informed me that I had placed myself 
completely in their power by "abducting'^ and " stealing" my daughter; 
that he was disposed to have me punished, but that if I would discontinue 
my application for a divorce, and give up the custody of my child, and never 
again interfere with what he called the " rights" of his Charleston friend over 
her, I should not be molested. This was his "compromise." To the first propo- 
sition I replied that I should certainly not desist from my suit, but if, against 
the assurances of her counsel to mine, and the advice of her counsel to herself, 
his friend should offer any obstacles to the obtaining of a divorce on the ground 
of desertion, I should proceed to obtain a decree declaring the marriage void 
from the beginning, for reasons with which they were both acquainted. 
And as to the child, they knew perfectly well the conditions I had stated to 
Mr. Pettigru as unalterable : that, if under any circumstances I should con- 
sent to her being in the south a portion of each year, it must be upon the 
most solemn and satisfactory assurances that she should never see or have even 
the slightest correspondence with themselves or their families. At this they 
were both greatly enraged, and Mr. Waring, using the most profane and 
abusive language towards me, declared (and in these declarations he was 
joined by Mr. Searles) that they wished me to understand that our relations 
were hereafter to be of open hostility ; that they would pursue me till every 
cent of their fortunes should be expended, or while a breath of life animated 
their bodies; that the warfare they had now began should be either my ruin 
or their own. Mr. Waring ended by taking from his pocket and serving 
upon me a writ of habeas corpus, commanding the production of my child in 
the Superior Court the next day at noon. Mr. Kimball accompanied them 
into the hall, and expressed his indignation at the unworthy trick they had 
played in begging; him to bring about a meeting for the consideration of 
" compromises," merely to obtain an opportunity for displaying tneir ruman- 
ism toward me, and to serve a writ upon me. 

The next day I did not fiil to present myself with my child in the Superior 
Court. The three judges in attendance were Oakley, (Ch. J.,) Campbell, and 
Payne. The District Attorney, Mr. Blunt, with the present District Attor- 
ney, Mr. Hall, appeared in my behalf, and Mr. Henry E. Davies for the 
other party. Upon examination of testimony, and hearing of counsel, Judge 
Oakley gave the decision, in which, at great length, he set forth, 1st, that 
there was not a particle of evidence to show that I had ever consented^ to 
any guardianship or custody of my child on the part of the person now claim- 
ing it ; 2d, that I had protested against any such guardianship or custody ; 
and 3d, that if I had agreed to any such guardianship or custody, the agree- 
ment, or any agreement on the subject into which I could enter, was, as had 
been decided time after time, absolutely null and void. The custody of 
the child was declared therefore to be vested solely in myself. 



I 16 ] 

The contesting party Tvas in the court ; Waring, Searles, and Waring's 
son-in-law, Lewis, were there. They must have heard this decision with 
equal mortification and astonishment. They now manifested a disposition to 
approach me with civility. The District Attorney, however, prudently sug- 
gested that I should hold no conversation with them, except in the presence 
of a witness. Until I left the court, therefore, not a moment passed in 
which one of my arms was not locked in one of those of my counsel, Mr. 
Kimball or Mr. Hall. 

Mr. Searles was now humbled. He, with "Waring, had vaunted that in 
this trial I should receive my first lesson in defeat. Apprehensive that what 
had occurred in the preceding twenty-four hours might provoke me to an 
abandonment of the plea of desertion, in the suit for divorce, for that of the 
original nullity of the marriage, he wished to know what I wanted of his 
guest and friend. I explained, that Mr. Pettigru had written to my counsel 
that he had advised her to admit, in any form that might be deemed suit- 
able, the fact that since a period shortly after the marriage she had not 
intended to live with me as a wife. He conversed with her, and, returning 
to me, said, " Such a statement shall be made by her, in the form of a note to 
me : when will you need it V I replied, that I intended returning to Phila- 
delphia the next day, and of course should require its delivery to me before 
the departure of the five o'clock train. " Very well,'' he said, "my house is 
on your way down to the wharf, and if you stop there, at half-past four, I will 
deliver it to you.'' I called the next day at precisely the time appointed. Mr. 
Searles came to the door, said I was a little earlier than he had anticipated, 
and requested me to ring the bell again at the end of five minutes. I sat in 
my carriage, in which I had left a friend, at the corner of the street, holding 
my watch, till five minutes had expired, then rung Mr. Searles's bell again, 
and he gave me the following paper, entirely in the hand writing of the person 
signing it, the obtaining of which by "coercion," is the chief "fraud" by 
which it is alleged I secured a decree of divorce ! 

" New York, Sept. — , 1852. 

"Dear Sir: — I will not deny that I left R. W. Griswold for reasons the result of feelings on my 
part satisfactory to myself, which I do not choose to disclose; and which I still deem .satisfactory 
to myself, though a court of law might deem them insufficient to justify or excuse me in separat- 
ing myself from him. I have also no difficulty in saying that my intention when I left him was 
not to return to him, and my course and present position are founded on this determination, 
which still continues. I have left him, therefore, at full liberty to pursue such legal measures as 
he may be advised, and which, upon their communication to me, I have not in any way impeded 
or resisted. Charlotte A. Grlswold. 

" To Hamilton R. Searles." 

In Mr. Searles's deposition, he says I told him that if the other party did 
not "sign" this paper I "would apply to the courts for the child;" I "would 
bring her before the courts of New York." He deliberately swears that 
I said this the very day after the highest of these courts had decided that the 
child should remain in my possession ! He proceeds: "Before making the 
last statement, he called at my house every four or five minutes to see if the 
paper had been signed.'^ This " demonstration" of his, that I extorted the 
paper in question from his protege, has been printed in hundreds of jour- 
nals, and has rounded the abusive sentences of hireling calumniators cm- 
ployed against me as counsel. It may be that it was not technically a 
perjury, but it is impossible that I address any person so dull as not to 
appreciate at its just value the oath of a creature who could torture the 
simple incident of calling at his house, on his own request, as above related, 
into an act of " coercion," or in any way allude to it as involving dishonor. 

Mr. Waring's son-in-law, Mr. Charles D. Lewis, appears to have neglected 
a comparison of his deposition with the depositions of the other witnesses. 
He swears : 

" I know of a certain paper being signed by Mrs. Griswold in court to facilitate libel- 
lant in obtaining the divorce; it was a paper that respondent had great reluctance to 
sign, and she would not do so until I had altered certain words at the commencement." 



L 17 J 

, Observe, that the very paper — the letter to Mr. Searles — which Mr. Searles 
and others swear, with such particular array of circumstances, was signed 
at Mr. Searles' s house, this person says was signed "in court.'' Observe, 
also, that this paper, now on record, and every word of which is in the most 
careful and elaborate style of the signer's own handwriting, was " altered" 
by the deponent, " in court," " before she would sign it." 

It may be thought that I have already exposed quite enough of the false- 
hoods of these unscrupulous defamers ; but as the recent proceedings were 
instituted mainly, if not exclusively, upon the ground that the letter to Mr. 
Searles was procured by means of intimidation and bribery, it would be im- 
proper to pass in silence the most direct and circumstantial testimony in 
support of this charge. The writer of that letter herself swears : 

" The said Rufus W. then told deponent if she would only sign a paper consenting 
to a divorce, that deponent might keep the child forever, and that she would never be 
troubled or molested again about it ; but that if deponent did not consent he would 
have deponent imprisoned for stealing away his child. It was through such threats, 
and fears of their execution, that deponent was compelled to sign a paper," <&c, 

Mr. Searles swears, in answer to the sixth interrogatory : 

" She was annoyed by her husband during her stay at my house ; she was ill at my 
house, and his treatment of her during her illness was harsh and xinhind ; she was at my 
house about a month, and was unfit to see any one. The treatment I have spoken of 
lasted until within about a week of her leaving my house." 

In both these depositions, it will be perceived, are distinct assertions of 
personal intercourse between the other party and myself, during her stay in 
New York. She says, I " told" her this and that, thus operating upon her 
fears, till she " was compelled to sign the paper," &c. ; and he, " by all that 
is written in the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God," makes oath in support 
of her declarations, that while she was so ill, at his house, as to be " unfit 
to see any one," my " treatment of her was harsh and unkind ;" that she was 
" annoyed by me," &c. These things would look very badly, if from credible 
witnesses, but in the very deposition here quoted Mr. Searles says, in answer 
to a subsequent interrogatory: 

" While respondent was at my house, during the time mentioned by me in answer to 
the sixth interrogatory, there were NO PERSONAL INTERVIEWS between li- 
belant AND RESPONDENT, to my knowledge." 

• 

This express and positive contradiction by Mr. Searles, not only of his own 
most significant and important testimony as to the means by which his friend 
was induced to write and deliver for me the letter, but of her own affidavit, 
so far as it relates to the same subject, the New York Tribune, actuated by 
malevolence, and a desire to prejudice the public against me, in order that it 
may the more easily defend itself in a suit now pending, brought by me for 
an unprovoked and atrocious libel, wilfully suppresses — thus not only con- 
fining its report to one side of the case, but from the exparte testimony offered 
by that side, erasing with careful malignity the sentences that might lead the 
public to a favorable and just estimate of my conduct. 

At the distance of some twenty feet I observed the other party, surrounded 
by her friends, in the chambers of the Superior Court, while the Chief Jus- 
tice was pronouncing his decision against her, but was not at any other time 

in her presence while she was in New York, and did not once in that year 
^ speak to her in New York, any more than I did at Schooley's Mountain, where 
^she is made to swear that I attempted, by my conversation, to intimidate her, 

though I was never at Schooley's Mountain in my life. In four hours and a 

half from the moment I received her letter I was in Philadelphia. 

The hand writing of the letter thus obtained was proven, and it therefore 

became a part of the record of the case ; but when it was examined by Mr. 

Cuyler, who, by the withdrawal of Mr. Ingraham (at this time unable to 



[ 18 ] 

give attention to clients, on account of the condition of his health and private 
affairs,) Had become my counsel in the matter before the Common Pleas, he 
expressed regret that Mr. Ingraham had suggested or that I had obtained any 
such paper. He did not regard it as of the least importance. It admitted 
nothing which was not already clearly established by evidence. If he ever 
referred to it before the court, it was casually and with indifference. 

But I have entered thus particularly into the history of what took place 
between myself and the adverse party, at this time, for a weightier reason 
than that of disproving the alleged coercion of her will by calling at Mr. 
Searles's house " every four or five minutes,^^ or by using " threats'' to that 
person Avhile invading her sick room. It will be perceived that in all the 
depositions of Mr. Waring, Mr. Searles, and Mr. Waring's son-in-law, not a 
syllable appears respecting my arrest for " stealing,'^ (this is the word used 
by Waring and his southern friend in their affidavits,) my own daughter, the 
proceedings in the Superior Court, or the. decision of the highest judicial 
authority in New York that I was not only the sole legal guardian and 
custodian of this daughter, but that my rights were inalienable — that, no 

MATTER WHAT AGREEMENT I MIGHT MAKE, IN WRITING OR OTHERWISE, all 

attempts to release myself from responsihility in regard to the child, or to 
release the child from her natural duty of obedience to me, ivere utterly 
WITHOUT effect. The reason for their silence on this subject — their avoid- 
ance of allusion to the most important point in the history of their relations 
with me at this period — will suggest itself to the reader. Observe, that the 
very day after three judges of the Superior Court, Chief Justice Oakley pre- 
siding, had solemnly declared that no such agreement or writing was or 
could be of any force, significance or obligation whatever, the depositions of 
Waring, Searles, Lewis, Searles's wife, and the party nominally leading this 
persecution, all declare that the letter of the latter to Searles was wrung 
from her by threats that I Avould withhold, unless such letter were given me, 
a loritten contract that she should have the sole custody of my child, and sole 
authority over her : "a guarantee of the said child as exclusively her 
OWN forever!" 

Does any person really believe that they would have demanded, or that I 
would have promised, as the consideration for an act alleged to be of the 
highest possible importance to me, such an instrument as l)y the uniform 
ruling of the courts was held and known to be unlawful, worthless, null, and 
the execution of which could by no means whatever be enforced ? Is it not 
at once perceived that, to have stated the decision of Judge Oakley and his 
associates, would have exposed to derision every allegation made in these 
malignant depositions as to the means l>y which the letter addressed to 
Searles, and ivritten by the woman signing it, was obtained ? 

The most painful emotions awakened by these reminiscences linger about 
my child. I returned to Philadelphia on Friday evening ; during my ab- 
sence, in contempt of the decision of the court, she was taken, with the con- 
nivance, as I suppose, of Waring, Searles and Lewis, on board the Charleston 
steamer, and from that time I have never seen her ; nor have I, nor has her 
only sister, been permitted since even to correspond with her. She is now 
sixteen years of age, and I have learned, from persons living in Charleston, 
that she is beautiful and engaging. To be with her before my death, long 
enough to convince her that she owes me reverence and affection as well as 
obedience, has been an engrossing and continual passion. It is in vain. I 
should not outlive the protracted delays of a suit in the United States courts 
for her restoration, and I can only implore of the Father of us all that she 
may sometime learn by how great a wrong she has been won to the embraces 
of my enemies, and how little I have deserved the hatred with which she 
has been taught to regard me. 

Soon after these proceedings in New York for the recovery of the custody 
of my child, additional and important testimony, by the liev. Dr. Hooker, 



[ 19 ] 

Mr. Samuel A. Harrison, and Mr. Richard B. Kimball, was taken, upon the 
court's order, and after more than eight months from the commencement of 
my suit, a decree of divorce was granted me. I was at the time in New 
York, where ray counsel, Mr. Cuyler, addressed me with his congratulations 
an announcement of the result. 

The proceedings in the case had gone on with as much publicity as was 
necessary and usual, in cases of this nature. The other party was a portion 
of the time in the city, and much the largest portion of the whole summer 
so near it as easily to be advised of every movement in my behalf. Yet no 
opposition at any time was offered. 

A short time afterward I was married — my first wife, the mother of my 
children, the only being who in any just sense had ever possessed the right 
to be regarded as my wife, having been dead more than ten years. 

I might now have congratulated myself upon the prospect of a happy life; 
but Mr, Waring and Mr. Searles, baffled thus far in attempts to injure me, had 
by no means forgotten their oaths to pursue me until I should be ruined; and 
they were about this time joined by two of the lower order of literary women, 
actuated by a malice not less determined than their own, though originating 
in somewhat different causes. These persons took unto themselves an attor- 
ney, whose name I believe enjoys its chief distinction about the Tombs, and 
may be considered as having thus become thoroughly organized for proceed- 
ing against me by a course of systematic public and private calumny. Be- 
fore I had been married a month, one of the women above alluded to, Mrs. 
E. F. EUet, addressed to my wife, to whom she was as much a stranger as if 
she had never been born, a letter filled with abusive falsehoods against me. 
This letter, with some alterations, she has herself since published. To what 
degree the writing of such a letter, even if every word of it had been true, 
to a newly married woman, against her husband, was an outrage of common 
decency, the reader is left to decide. From time to time during the following 
three years anonymous letters about me, made up of almost every species of 
slander and vituperation, were continually appearing in the public jourjials. 
In the Charleston Courier it was stated that I had procured a divorce by 
bribing the Pennsylvania legislature, and that Mrs. Ellet, coming to a know- 
ledge of the circumstances, had caused me to be arrested for bigamy. In a 
great number of newspapers it was alleged that I had stolen from the office 
of the prothonotary of Philadelphia county the records of my suit, either to 
conceal frauds of which it furnished evidence, or to prevent an appeal to the 
Supreme Court. If I was observed to be a visitor at the house of any gen- 
tleman of social or professional eminence, an anonymous letter against me 
was addressed to him. Gentlemen or ladies called at my own house at the 
peril of receiving communications of the same description. At length, in the 
spring of 1855, paragraphs appeared in various quarters to the effect that an 
extraordinary and unparalleled history'of villainy by a clergyman and man of 
letters was about to be exposed in the courts, and that it would comprise 
such details of profligacy and cruelty, as would put to shame even the most 
revolting " inventions of the French novelists.''' All these communications, 
to individuals, or to the public, were easily traceable to the same circle, and 
the larger part of them to a single individual. 

These significant intimations, which the parties at work did not forget to 
have sent to me, were followed by the filing of an " affidavit," purporting to 
be the composition of the respondent in my suit for divorce, tried and decided 
three years before, and setting forth that the decree then granted me should 
be vacated, because procured by ft-aud. Scarcely any of the numerous 
particular charges contained in this affidavit were pertinent to the matter 
submitted to the court, and no evidence in regard to them on my part was 
either necessary or proper to be given. On most of them it would have 
been difficult to give any evidence. Judge Thompson refers to these in his 
opinion in the case, as '"* the many and gross charges which are now made 



^ 



[ 20 ] 

against the libelant, all of which were as well known by the respondent be- 
fore her declared acquiescence in the course adopted by him, as now, and 
were not breathed by any one." Referring to their inconsistency with her 
former declarations, he says : " The only reasonable explanation is, that 
since that period her mind has become more excited against the libelant, or 
Tier views so greatly changed that she 7iow sees things through a different me- 
dium." This remark is justified by the evidence before him, but the true 
history is, that they are hardly her allegations at all. Those here referred 
to, as well as those upon which the court has given its discrediting decision, 
are vituperative and defamatory in the extreme, but so confused as to bear 
no evidence of being an original narrative. They have been put together 
by persons who of their own knowledge could say nothing about the matter. 
They show the affidavit to be the work of more hands than one, and betray 
just such inconsistencies as are incident to a production in which several per- 
sons narrate and exaggerate a history received from others, filling it to what 
they deem an effective completeness by bald inventions. The affidavit was 
exparte, and by the rules of law I could put in no responsive statement. The 
court, of course, declared that it " should not he regarded as evidence." Its 
numerous falsehoods and self-contradictions have been sufficiently exhibited 
in preceding pages. My reputation, I presume, is sufficiently discharged, by 
Judge Thompson's decision, from the imputation which was the sole ground 
of the proceedings by which the other side sought to have the decree granted 
me in 1852 set aside — the imputation of fraud in procuring that decree. 
This matter, and no other matter, has been in issue in the question lately 
presented by so many methods to the public ; and it has been decided that 
there was no fraud in the case. The slanderous allegations in which this 
imputation has been enveloped, and by which it has been sought to support 
it, I think those who have read this narrative will admit, have been disproved, 
as far as their nature admitted, for the most part out of the mouths of my 
accuser and her witnesses. 

Of these witnesses I would gladly refrain from saying anything further ; 
but my cause is not my own cause only ; and some additional illustrations of 
my relations with these persons, and of the character and significance of their 
testimony, seem necessary to the reader's appreciation of the attack they 
have made upon me. Their depositions, in which the malice of years was 
concentrated, were given, not in open court, where they would have been 
subjected to the searching power of viva voce cross-examinations, but were 
taken by commissioners, on interrogatories set down in their commission and 
framed, for the most part under the supervision of the persons who were 
to answer them, and with the exact purpose of bringing out all the libel- 
lous matter which they wished to get before the public. The leaders, un- 
willing to trust to Mr. Searles's training, appear to have made up for him 
an affidavit which, on being interrogated, he proceeded to read, until one of 
the commissioners told him it was not in order, and that he must answer from 
his unassisted memory. The cabal consisted of Mr. Searles, Mr. AVaring, 
Mr. Waring's son-in-law, and Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, Mrs. E. F. Ellet,* and 
Searles's wife. 

With respect to Mr. Searles, whose name is brought forward most unwil- 
lingly in the preceding paragraphs, I must be permitted to say, that regard 
for the memory of his sister prevents a more minute exposure to the public 
of the causes of his alienation from me. The proceeding lately before the 
court, was by a person claiming to be my second wife. Regarding myself as 
unmarried, I have been married again, and have other children. The wo- 
man whose cause he has espoused is no connection of his, is separated from 

* There was inserted in the commission to take the exparte testimony of the ahoA'e named persons, 
a requisition upon each for the delivery of the letters he or she had received from the party in whose 
name the proceeding was commenced. Mrs. EUet discloses her familiarity with the commission, 
and her contempt of the court granting it, by swearing that she had ^'■destroyed some of these letters 
since the commission was received." The others, I have no doubt, had done the same thing. 



[ 21 ] 

him "by nearly a thousand miles, and until lately was an entire stranger to 
him. Little obligation could lie on Mm to aid her cause, however just it 
might appear. Yet he volunteers his presence and his aid to prove, if he 
can, that the father of his own nieces, who was the husband of his only sister, 
is a bigamist and a felon ; and being unable to prove anything on this point, 
contents himself with placing on record for the dishonor of a departed sister's 
memory, and for the disgrace and unhappiness of her offspring, his deposi- 
tion that that father and husband was always a common liar, despicable and 
disesteemed ! I have only to say to Mr. Searles, that as he declares he has 
no special hostility to me, these volunteered reproaches — to whomsoever volun- 
teered reproaches might be becoming — were not becoming to him; and that 
*' when men standing in the relation of near kindred, lose decorum, they lose 
everything.'^ Mr. Waring, another witness, was my first wife's uncle, and 
stands to my elder children in the same relation as Mr. Searles, only that he 
is further removed from them by a generation. He may consider how far 
what I have addressed to Mr. Searles is applicable to him. 

Those who have read the depositions of the two females who have been 
more active than any other persons in the recent proceedings against me, 
must have been struck with the facts, that both of them .swear they have not 
now and never have had any personal acquaintance whatever with the party 
whose cause they undertake ; that not any portion of their entire testi- 
mony has even the slightest relevancy to the issue submitted to the court ; 
and that both betray a degree of malice which before a jury would certainly 
deprive their declarations of influence even if they were pertinent and not 
disproved. I shall not enter upon any discussion of those published or un- 
published opinions of mine respecting their attempts at literature, in which 
I have been so unfortunate as to dissent from their own well-known and 
perhaps more just judgments ; and in what I have to say of their testimony, 
I shall endeavor to be as brief as possible. 

AYith Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, I am happy to say, I have never had any per- 
sonal intercourse of any kind, beyond casual conversations, occupying alto- 
gether perhaps twenty minutes, in fifteen years. These conversations were 
never sought by me. Her deposition on the motion to vacate the decree 
of divorce, on the ground that such decree was fraudulently obtained, em- 
braces the following allegations — the only distinct " facts" she could remem- 
ber that in her opinion were pertinent to this issue : 

"From the character of the libelant and his acts, as I hnoxo them, I am hostile to 
him ; have been so ever since I knew him ; because it was proved to my satisfaction that 
he preached the gospel sometime after he was'dismissed from the church that gave him 
the authority ; and because when he was employed to get up a design for the cover of 
Graham's Magazine, liis name was conspicuous among the first six or eight greatest 
men in the oountiy." 

When my counsel read the first of the above statements, he caused an 
inquiry to be addressed to the Rev. A. D. Gillette, of New York, who was 
the proper ecclesiastical authority on the subject, and received from that dis- 
tinguished and most estimable pastor an answer, which was produced in 
court, that I was " a member and clergyman of the Baptist Church, in good 
standing," — as I have been without interruption or question from the period 
at which I first attained to those honorable relations, more than fifteen years 
ago. The second of these declarations by Mrs. Ann S. Stephens is quite as 
incorrect. Never having professed any skill, however, in the arts of " de- 
sign," I am one of the last persons in the world, perhaps, whom any one 
would think of employing for such a service as she describes ; and besides, 
if the authoress of " Fashion and Famine" will take the trouble to consult 
her file of Graham's Magazine, she will discover that my connection with 
that periodical entirely ceased in 1842 ; that I was succeeded in its editorship, 
in turn, by Mr. Bayard Taylor and Judge Conrad ; and that it was while the 
latter gentleman was associated with the proprietor in its management, seve- 



[ 22 ] 

ral years after, that my name was introduced, with that of Edgar A. Poe, 
who had been my predecessor in the conduct of the work, and the names of 
C. F. Hoifman, T. S. Fay, and others who had frequently contributed to its 
pages, into an engraved border to the cover, " designed," as the performance 
itself betrays, by Mr. William Croome, a well-known artist of Philadelphia, 
who had been '' employed to get it up." I am sure my readers will agree that 
quite enough has been said to exhibit the value of what Mrs. Ann S. Stephens 
"knows" and declares under oath in this matter. 

With Mrs. E. F. Ellet, I became acquainted in 1840, while preparing for 
the press a volume entitled " The Poets and Poetry of America." 1 was 
sorry to learn afterwards that my notice in that 1 lOok of her literary labors 
was displeasing to her. In writing it I certainly did not intend to say any- 
thing which was not as flattering as might be said consistently with truth. 
It would have been but a poor recommendation of my book had it revealed 
that the authoresses presented to my readers were either immoral in their 
characters or without literary capacities. Its whole interest, on the contrary, 
depended on the displays I offered of the excellence of their productions. I 
endeavored to exhibit Mrs. Ellet in the most favorable light possible*. I 
quoted several pages of her verses and praised them as highly as I could. 
Had I been bound to consult no one but that person herself I might have given 
more, but I had to consult the interest of my publishers and the pleasure of 
my readers ; and as I was not professedly writing the biographies or copying 
the productions of obscure authoresses, I could do no more for Mrs. Ellet. My 
sketch of her personal and literary history is before the public in the " Fe- 
male Poets of America." My readers can judge of it for themselves. I saw but 
little of this woman until the year 1848. By a note now before me, dated the 
29th December, 1847, she informed me she had planned a work on "the heroic 
women of the Revolution," and, with some compliments referring to my sup- 
posed "intimacy with American history," expressed a wish to converse with 
me on the subject. Before I had had an opportunity to answer this note by 
another, I met the writer of it in Broadway, and offering apologies for my 
apparent neglect, assured her of the willingness with which I would give 
any assistance in my power toward the completion of her undertaking ; bu 
at the same time told her the Historical Society, of which I was a member, 
would furnish, in its library, the most ample materials for her purpose to be 
found in the city ; and that Mr. Jacob B^ Moore, the learned librarian of that 
society, to whom I would readily introduce her, was far more familiar than 
I with the domestic life of the country during the period to which her re- 
searches would be limited. Mrs. Ellet swears : 

"I became acquainted -with the' libelant by his calling on me at my lodgings at Mrs. 
Green's, in the Fall of 1847, I think ; he called and introduced kiimelf ; he stated that 
he heard I wa^ preparing a work on the women of the Revolution, and he offered me an 
introduction to the Historical Society, tchich I already had." 

I must be allowed to correct Mrs. Ellet's recollection by transcribing a note 
received from her the second day after the above-mentioned conversation. As 
there is nothing in it of a confidential nature, I present it entire : 

" Friday 3Iorning, Deceniber Zlst, 
''Dear Sir : — If it is perfectly convenient for you to accompany me to the library of 
the Historical Society this morning, I should be glad to avail viy self of jour kind offer. 
I will call at the New York Hotel, on my way, about half-past ten, (if it does not rain,) 
as that hour will not break in so much upon your day. In case of any engagement, 
pray do not put it off for me, as another time will suit as well. Very truly yours. 
" To Mr. Griswold." " E. F. Ellet." 

The rooms of the Historical Society were in the University, on Washington 
Square, and I myself, when in the city, occupied others in the same building 
as a study. Of the means to which, in the following summer, I deemed it 
proper to resort, in order that Mrs. Ellet might perceive the necessity of pro- 



[ 23 ] 

secuting her labors elsewhere than in my study, I shall here offer no particu- 
lars. I preferred entire seclusion, rather than her company; and after re- 
moving the key of my apartments — too large to carry about my person — from 
under the mat at one of the doors, where I had been accustomed to place it 
when leaving the building, to the custody of Mr. Moore, in the Historical 
Library, with a request that he would deliver it into no hands but mine, all 
civilities between Mrs. Ellet and myself ceased, for several months. A re- 
newal of intercourse was offered on her part in the following note : 

" 7 Park Place, Nov. 24th. 
"Bear Sir : — The Editor of the North American Review wants mo to prepare an ar- 
ticle forthwith, on the American Female Poets. Will not your publishers send me a 
copy, now — if they have one bound — that I may do it some justice? I will promise 
not to lend it before publication. Respectfully yoiu'S, " E. F. Ellet. 

" Rev. Dr. Griswold." 

I doubted whether she had received any such application as was pretended, 
though not her intention to write such an article ; but answered, that consi- 
dering her personal hostility to me, and that her own works, and the works 
of several authors with whom she had unfriendly relations, were reviewed in 
my book,^ I thought it would be highly improper for her to write anony- 
mously anything about it, and therefore should decline furnishing her an ad- 
vance copy. If she wished to review the volume she must wait until after its 
publication. In her deposition, Mrs. Ellet swears : 

"He afterwards called at my lodgings and offered me a sum of money if I would 
withdraw an article which I had written and sent to the North American Review, review- 
ing his work on the ' Female Poets of America,' to make room for another article which 
he supposed would be more favorable to himself." 

And in the letter appended to this deposition she says : 

''Mr. Griswold is, perhaps, not aware that the cause of his bitter enmity toward me 
(my rejection of his offered hrihe for the withdrawal of an article in the North American 
Review, and exposure of his fraud on- another occasion in a Philadelphia paper,) are 
well known in this community." 

Mrs. Ellet's forgetful ness in this case is even more striking than in that of 
her introduction at the Historical Society. Having occasion to call upon her, 
in behalf of another party, on the evening of the 23d of January, 1849, as 
I discover from a diary I then kept, I casually mentioned my surprise that 
she had w^ritten the article proposed for the North American Eeview (the 
only article from her pen, I believe, that ever appeared in that respectable 
periodical,) notwithstanding our correspondence on the subject. She said I 
was mistaken in supposing her review was in an unfriendly spirit. I assured 
her I had alluded to the matter merely because our meeting had recalled 
the fact, learned a few days before, that a paper on the genius of American 
women, by a gentleman whom I regarded .as one of the greatest of living 
authors, might have been offered to the Review but for the previous accept- 
ance of her communication, in which the same gene^'al subject was discussed 
and illustrated from the same text. Mrs. Ellet at the moment had especial 
reasons for complaisance, and assured me her article should be withdrawn. 
Nothing was said about money, but the next day I received a letter from her 
in which she says : 

" 779 Broadway, Jan. 2'ith. 

" Had she known of the intention of the gentleman in Philadelphia, before sending 
her article, Mrs. Ellet would have willingly withdrawn in his favor. As it is, the arti- 
cle is in the hands of the j)ublishers, who are of course responsible to her for its price 
at the usual rate of payment in the North American, [one dollar per page,] the review 
being intended to occupy about 25 pages. IBs. E. icould have no objection to their de- 

* Mrs. Ellet says in lier deposition : " He published a biograpliy of me which contains misstate- 
ments." She refers to the article in this volume. I assure her that every statement in it was made 
upon what seemed to me adequate authority, and that any " misstatements" which she may point 
out, shall be corrected with the greatest pleasure. 



[ 24 ] 

stroying it, should the editor think proper, 2>rovided the puhlishcrt remunerate her for 
her labor." 

I suspected the article by Mrs. Ellet had been accepted, in the absence of 
anything better on the subject, because it was offered as a gratuitous contri- 
biition. In no other way could I account for the admission of a AYriter of 
her inferior abilities to so reputable a \York. I presumed it to be untrue and 
unfair, merely from the fact that she wrote it, but was confident the editor of 
the Review would erase from it anything that was manifestly impertinent or 
grossly unjust. I was, therefore, indifferent about its publication ; and re- 
garding Mrs. Ellet's note above quoted as merely an artifice for obtaining $25 
from me, took no notice of it. 

In the extract alleging an attempt to "bribe" Mrs. Ellet, the reader will 
perceive that she refers to her "exposure" of some "fraud" which she 
charges upon me, " in a Philadelphia paper." In the letter from which this 
extract is taken, she says : 

" Mr. Griswold will also recollect a note written by him a few years since, in which 
he states that Mrs. Alice B. Neal had ' called at his oflBce to apologize for an article in 
her Gazette, which had appeared during her absence,' &c. (The same article before 
mentioned.") 

Instead of the words in parentheses, as in the original, now before me, 
Mrs. Ellet has substituted in the printed copies of this letter: "The article 
was in part written by myself." The article referred to appeared in a paper 
called Neal's Saturday Gazette, for the week ending December 30, 1849. Had 
it been simply a criticism of my " Female Poets of America," as it purported 
to be, I should have taken no notice of it, whatever its temper ; but it em- 
braced personal imputations that were libellous, and being informed that 
Mrs. Ellet was its author, I addressed her a note, inclosing a copy of the ar- 
ticle,^ and requesting an answer as to the truth of this information. There 
was in my note no such statement as is pretended in regard to Mrs. Xeal, as 
the reader will readily infer from the reply, which was as follows : 

" 779 Broadway, Jan. 4th. 
"Mrs. Ellet was much surprised yesterday by the receipt of Dr. Griswold's note of 
Dec. 30th. She had not seen the article in XeaVa Gazette, nor docs she know hy ichom it 
loas written. It is certainly unjust to charge upon her the responsibility of an anony- 
mous notice treating of published works." 

Exposures of this woman's unfortunate habit become tedious. I will only 
add, that there is not even one allegation in regard to me, in all her deposi- 
tion, including the letter which, without having any acquaintance with her, 
she addressed to my wife, and now appends to it, which is not essentially 
untrue : excepting only, that in reply to an impertinent question which she 
once asked me in my study, I remarked of the woman to whom she had re- 
ferred, " She is a very nice person." 

I hope in what I have said of these women I have not gone beyond the 
reserve both of fact and of language which restrains gentlemen in speaking 
of the other sex. Indeed, averse from controversy with any one, I cannot 
bring myself to enter the lists at all where women are presented as my anta- 
gonists. Honor paralyzes and ought to paralyze the arm of a man who at- 
tacks those whom it should ever be the highest pride and pleasure -only to 
defend. And when w^oman, leaving the domestic sphere, comes before 
the public, the challenger of public judgment ; when, laying down the 
distaff, she takes up the pen, — not for the illustration of those sentiments 
which are her proper world, but, as a newspaper reporter or correspondent, 
to enter into the exciting and rude discussions of the forum and the club- 
room ; to judge for others of public and private characters ; or, stepping 
in advance of attorneys general, grand-jurors, and others, its sworn and re- 
sponsible administrators, pushes herself through crowds into the heated air 
of city courts, and without writs or subpoenas calling her there, claims at- 



[ 25 ] 

tentlon as the vindicator of public justice, I shall for myself suffer chiefly in 
silence whatever she may do or say concerning me. The lists of such com- 
bats can be arranged by no court of honor or chivalry with whose laws I am 
acquainted. They are a problem in sociology which puzzles the " kings at 
arms." I mean no disparagement of any woman who pursues what she 
deems her calling in that way. She and not I must judge of its obligation 
on her, and of its dignity, so far as concerns herself. All that I have to say 
is, that, "matches or over-matches," in judicial or literary conflicts, to which 
woman invites the whole world : to witness the display, to judge the contest, 
and proclaim the victory — shall exhibit no further acceptance of challenges, 
from me, than that simple acknowledgment of the champion's presence and 
design, the omission to make which would be to treat her with disrespect. 
I have not meant in what I have said to give more than this recognition of 
their presence to Mrs. Ann S. Stephens and Mrs. E. F. Ellet, and if I have 
said less of them than some of my readers may desire or expect, those readers 
have my reason, and I hope my justification of it also. 

As I have said, I received, in due course, on the conclusion of my suit for 
divorce, a communication from my counsel that the decision of the court had 
been in my favor, with his congratulations on the occasion. 

The recent opinion of Judge Thompson, on the motion to vacate that deci- 
sion, has been greatly misunderstood. It has been extensively published 
that that learned and upright judge had " decided that no decree of divorce 
had ever been granted." He neither decided nor said any such thing. The 
application was to set aside a decree, as fraudulently obtained. In legal 
language, the matter before him was " a rule to show cause why the divorce 
should not be set aside." The application, in effect, admitted the decree, 
and was based on an allegation of fraud in procuring it. The judge "dis- 
charged the rule," that is to say, he did not grant the prayer of the party. 
He went over the whole ground of the alleged fraud, and declared that 
there was no fraud : and then, properly, perhaps, though, beyond a doubt, 
very unnecessarily, adds another ground for discharging the rule, namely, 
that as the records of his court had been lost and were not exhibited, and, 
therefore, as no decree of divorce ''appeared,^' the rule was to be discharged 
on this ground in addition to the others : the court not being bound to know 
that which, although existing, did not "appear." This was true. From 
some omission — certainly not imputable at all iome — no entry of the court's 
decree of divorce did appear on the court's docket ; and on an application of 
this kind before him, Mr. Justice Thompson was not bound to look beyond 
the docket of his own court ; especially in a case where he had already 
abundantly shown that it was a matter of no moment, so far as the rule sub- 
mitted was concerned, whether there was an entry there or not : for that no 
fraud had been used in procuring it, and that on that ground alone the 
"rule" of the other side would have to be " discharged." I may here say 
that the question as to the decree of divorce having been obtained was never 
once mooted on the argument. The fact was known as a fact, and as a fact 
assumed, all round. No doubt was raised by the bench during argument, or 
the doubt would have been removed. 

Conceding that on the docket no entry of divorce " appears," who, looking 
at the facts of the case, doubts that a divorce was in fact granted ? First, 
the very rule taken in the case assumed it : why was a rule taken to set aside 
a divorce if no divorce was granted ? Second, it was assumed by the party, 
witnesses, and counsel, against me : was not this alone strong presumptive 
proof, in a case where the ordinary proof, the record, was confessedly lost ? 
may not parties who confess against their wishes and interests, in such a 
ease, be trusted to have confessed nothing which their knowledge has not com- 
pelled them to confess ? And, third, an apjjeal was confessedly taken to the 
Supreme Court from a decree. Tim record is not lost. It may be seen, I 



[ 26 ] 

understand, by any one who choses to look among the files of the Supreme 
Court, for December term, 1853. Now every lawyer knows, that no appeal 
from a decree can be taken until some decree has been entered which can be 
appealed from. The right of appeal to the Supreme Court exists but in vir- 
tue of a statute which gives an appeal only from " the Jinal sentence or decree 
of the Court of Common Pleas." If there was no decree, from what did the 
other party, under orders and assistance of her counsel, Mr. H. M. Phillips, 
appeal ? Certainly she did not appeal from my right to ask for a decree. 
Will any person at the bar of Philadelphia accuse ]Mr. II. M. Phillips of hav- 
ing taken an appeal to the Supreme Court when there was no decree in the 
court below? Has that shrewd gentleman been practising in criminal 
courts for a quarter of a century, to learn his professional duty for the first 
time now, and from me^ The very writ of appeal (the certiorari, as it is called,) 
issued l)y the appellant's counsel, Mr. II. M. Phillips, upon her own affidavit, 
is headed, " In the matter of the appeal of Charlotte A. Griswold from the 
DECREE in the case sur divorce Rufus W. Griswold." The writ of appeal 
itself, now in that court, brings up as part of the docket entries in the court 
below, (and the entry in both courts may be seen, I understand, by any one 
who will be at the trouble to go and look at them,) the following entry in the 
Common Pleas: " Respondent appeals from decree of Court," and goes on to 
add that the " affidavit is filed, recognizance entered, and surety approved.'' 
And this writ was issued on the order of the counsel, Mr. II. M, Phillips, 
his client's affidavit being added, that she appeals, " because she firmly and 
verily believes injustice has been done." Injustice! how, or when, if the court 
had not decreed against her ? This entry of appeal from a decree, was per- 
haps not known to Judge Thompson, when he gave his opinion. And I sub- 
mit it to any and every member of the bar of Philadelphia who may read this 
paper, and to the other party's own counsel, Mr. II. M. Phillips and Mr. D. 
P. BroAvn, to declare whether there is the least doubt of a decree having 
been made ; though from the carelessness, not of myself, but the clerk of the 
court, it may not have " appeared" at the end of three years. Docs Mr. 
Justice Thompson know that his present clerk — Avhose care he commends — 
has never, io this day, entered on the docket the record of the court's 
discharge of the recent rule to vacate the decree? But with what truth would 
the court infer hereafter, from this omission, that the rule was never dis- 
charged, in fiict? I make no reproach to the court for the carelessness and 
blunders of its clerk, appointed by the people, and not by itself. 

The value of a recital, in subsequent judicial records, of a fact in a pre- 
ceding part of the record, (the preceding part being lost,) was very fully con- 
sidered and very conclusively settled in Pennsylvania, in Cromwell v. The 
Bank of Pittsburg, decided hj Judge Grier, and reported in Wallace, Jr., 
ii. 569, and since confirmed, after solemn argument, by the Supreme Court 
of the United States, Howard xvi. 571. In that case, the docket, supposed to 
contain the entry of judgment, was lost, just as the record was here. There 
was, indeed, no specific or usual evidence at all of an entry of judgment by 
the court. But an execution had issued, reciting the fact of a lorevious judg- 
ment, and this was held by both courts to be enough. If an execution, is- 
sued by the party interested to sustain the judgment, be evidence of a judg- 
ment, the rest of the record being lost, I may safely rely on the apjyeal, in 
this case, taken by the party interested to subvert the decree, and who would 
be the last to confess its existence, unless its existence was a fact. 

There cannot be the least doubt that a decree was given by the court, though 
perhaps neglected to be entered by the clerk any where. A part of the 
missing record has lately been found in the possession of one of the judges, 
who had by accident taken it to his house. I have taken measures to have 
the whole searched for and perfected. The process causes some delay, which, 
in the expectation that the evidence, when brought out, will be so full as to 
silence all opposition, I am obliged to encounter. In the meantime, how 



L 27 1 

ever, there is, as above shown, abundant evidence of a decree for every pur- 
pose of protection of my character, and the character of others dearer to 
me than my own. 

Some persons have been disposed to censure me for marrying so soon after 
I received intelligence of my divorce, and before the year allowed by law 
for an appeal, had expired. I may ask, what course would these persons 
have imposed upon me in those states where there is no limit as to the time 
during which appeals may be taken in such cases ? But what reason had I 
to expect that an appeal would be taken ? rather, what reason had I not to 
suppose that wo appeal would be taken, and that the whole matter was at an 
end with the decree of the inferior court ? The other party had given her 
consent to my proceeding, provided I would not exhibit her misfortune to the 
world: which I did not. She had never once appeared in court during the 
suit. Every thing, says Judge Thompson, in his opinion discharging me from 
all imputation of fraud, was " as well known by the respondent before her 
declared acquiescence in the course adopted by the libelant as now," and 
" the only reasonable explanation is, that since that period her mind has 
become more excited against the libelant, or her views so greatly changed 
that she now sees things through a different medium.'^ This, however, was 
a matter which I could not foresee. My marriage with her, if it was a mar- 
riage, being pronounced legally dissolved, what suggestion of law or of 
propriety called on me to wait a year to know what action Avould next be 
taken by a person who had expressed her satisfaction with all that was 
being done : a person whom I never considered, in truth, as my wife, at all, 
and with whom for years I had had no intercourse — whatever ? The ap- 
peal which was subsequently taken, was in the nature of a fraud upon my 
rights and expectations ; and it is not to my discredit, I hope, that I did not 
presume that it would be practised. 

I have now brought to a close my narrative, and have sufficiently display- 
ed, I trust, in what I have deemed it necessary to say of the parties who 
have appeared against me, the secret of the late proceedings. Of all the 
charges presented as grounds for the sought for action of the court, Judge 
Thompson has decided that not one is sustained by proof. On every point 
at issue in these proceedings I have been judicially acquitted. Here t might 
rest, but a question, not of law, but simply of social ethics, referred to in 
the preceding paragraph, and, as I conceive, without any sufficient justifica- 
tion, brought before the public, demands for this reason, some further con- 
sideration. With a few observations illustrative of this, and designed more 
for the vindication of another than of myself, I will end. 

The question whether my alliance with Miss Myers was altogether void, 
or only voidable, was one to which my thoughts were directed within a few 
hours after the ceremony. Believing then, as I had good reasons for believ- 
ing, and as I have since had more conclusive reasons for believing, that the 
peculiarity of the case was understood both by the niece and at least one of 
her aunts ; and knowing,, as I knew, and others knew and could testify, the 
extent to which my addresses had been invited by one or both of these aunts, 
and the manner in which they had been received by the party most especi- 
ally concerned, my own individual opinion was that there was no marriage 
in the case, any more than there would have been had the ceremony taken 
place between parties of the same sex, or where the sex of one was doubt- 
ful or ambiguous. I regarded it as a fraud going to the foundation of 
the matter — to those essential motives which religion itself consecrates as 
fundamental in this ordinance. Though not bred to the profession of the 
law, I knew very well that the foundation of all law is good faith and mo- 
rality, and I had sufficient ftimiliarity with legal writers to be acquainted 
with the doctrine declared by Chancellor Kent, that " a marriage procured 
by fraud is void ah initio, and may be treated as null by every court in which 



I 2S ] 

its validity may ho incidentally called in question ;" that ** this infjredi- 
ent is as fatal in this as in any other contract."* Let me not be misun- 
derstood : at no time have I entertained latitudinarian opinions on this im- 
portant and sacred subject; I advance none now; I concede now as I thoufjht 
then, that no mere error, no misrepresentations which could be called simply 
disinj!;enuous, scarcely any //«»(? oven, if in respect to the condition, rank, 
fortune, manners, character, or any external circumstances Avhatever, of a 
party, would make the marriajjc either void or voidable. These are acci- 
dents of the contract, not interferiniz; with its essential ends. But the con- 
tract has some requisites tliat are imperative ; over implied, never expressed, 
fundamental ; and when those are known by those who alone can know them, 
to lie wanting, and the other party is led and invited, tanquam conspirafione, 
to the alliance, the inclination of my mind was to tlie belief that he contracts 
no marriage whatever. It was not from any conviction of my own private 
jud<;ment as to the moral existence of this marriage that 1 applied for a 
decree of divorce. I was told by counsel to whom I confided my case, that 
this was a form, proper to be adopted wherever the marriage ceremony had 
been solemnized, though the ceremony might have been absolutely without 
effect ; and in this position he was supported by the great jurist I have 
named, who says, that though a marriage " be ahsolutely void, and no sen- 
tence of voidance be absolutely necessary, yet as well for the good order of 
society as for the peace of mind of all persons concerned, it is expedient that 
the nullity of the marriage should be ascotaineJ and derlarcd by the decree 
of a court of competent jurisdiction. "t The position seemed to me reasona- 
ble; and whetiier there might not exist a bare legal form of marriage — a 
form that might be called "outstanding"' — obligatory as a legal form simply, 
and in violation of the spirit of law, and fit to be acknowledged only in the 
preamble of a petition which sought a declaration of its nullity — as a ques- 
tion of law too nice for me to determine. No mode of judicially ascer- 
iaininrf and dcclan'n// a marriage vf)id from the beginning, existed in Penn- 
sylvania, where I was then domiciled, so iar as my counsel knew, nor, I be- 
lieve, does exists at all, otherwise than through theforni of dissolving one ad- 
mitted to be valid. The proper application of this form to my case was a ques- 
tion for my counsel to decide, and he did decide it, in a way which under his 
arguments and authority satisfied my conscience Itoth then and now. It was 
a matter in which, of course, I could submit myself with safety only to my 
legal adviser, under whose doubts my original opinion on the sultjcct was 
controlled at that time. But without going into any iurther exhibition of 
my grounds or authorities of belief, I may say, that if I was correct, as I 
solemnly assert my conviction that I was, as t<t the previous knowledge, and 
correct, as I know I was, as to the fact of the infirmity itself, and correct, as 
others stand ready to prove that I was, as to the inducements placed before 
me, then I was correct in thinking that no valid marriage — in other words, 
that no marriage at all — had ever taken place with Miss Myers. That none 
bad taken place, can, indeed, from these circumstances, be maintained, 
on the authority of rituals and religious writers, on that of canonists, civi- 
lians, and common lawyers, before any tribunal or tribunals, ecclesiastical or 
civil, legislative or judicial, of any civilized country. 

My case was unembarassed with any question whether, by long cohabi- 
tation, I had made a "condonation" or forgiveness of the great wrong which 
was practised. Ciw tarndiu iacnit^ was a question which no man could ask. 
On the very night after the ceremony the parties separated on account of this 
wrong. The ceremony itself was private, and the marriage which it was 
meant to create, concealed, disowned, and discredited. My action was prompt 
and absolute at that time, so much as to give rise to the imputation of 
cruelty. Every right of property which the ceremony gave, if it gave any, 
was as soon as possible declared to be and to remain in the state in which it 

* II. Commentaries, p. 75. t It)id, p. 76. 



[ 29 ] 

would have been if no ceremony at all had taken place ; and the woman, 
separating herself from me by half a continent, and so remaining, except on 
a few occasions when she has been seen with me in public, but never seen 
with me otherwise, has persisted in such a life from the day of that cere- 
mony to this. That I should regard as of slight obligation such a performance: 
a union which, as I have shown, was no marriage, an operation, which began 
like a fraud, and was continued like a farce, will not, I presume, be surpris- 
ing to any man; and that with proceedings already taken to secure a judi- 
cial declaration of its nullity, and with the assurance of my counsel that such 
declaration would, as a formal thing, be a matter of course, on the first of 
July, 1852, it is not perhaps so surprising as it would naturally otherwise 
appear, that I should, between six and seven years from the time of the 
original separation, have made known to a lady the sentiments recently in- 
spired by her, nor blameworthy in such a ]ady"^if, removed from the scenes 
of tliese matters, indulging in no idle conversation, or idle listening, and 
relying implicitly — as was amiable, and natural in her sex — on the truth of 
all, both of fact and of view, that / represented to her, she should not have 
felt bound to give a positive and final rejection to my address — which indeed 
deserved rather the name of my coiifidence. 

Let no one charge cruelty or inconsideration upon me in the matter of the 
present publication. For more than ten years my lips have been profoundly 
sealed toward the public upon this, the primal and eldest cause of the other 
party's separation from me. For years I consented to live in the painful and 
anomalous condition of a man who was suspected of being single, yet without 
the right to marry, and of being married, without the existence of a wife. 
From regard to the feelings of the other part}-, and the feelings of her friends, 
I was willing to incur the reproach of deserting a woman who called herself 
my wife, or of so treating her as to ol)lige her to desert me ; and from this 
same regard to the feelings of herself and her family, for which I am sure, 
I shall not be blamed, I have gone near the limits of my conscience in pre- 
senting secondary instead of primary'- grounds as the motives of my petition 
for judicial assurance in the matter, I am not saying in this that the 
secondary grounds are not true : they are strictly true, and are proved ; but 
they followed from the first grounds, which, if I had felt willing to offer 
them, would have been fiir higher, more satisfactory, and more moral than 
the ground of two years' desertion, acknowledged as a cause of divorce only 
by a statute of local application. 

And now that, after the end of three years, when, to use the language of 
Judge Thompson, this Avoman's mind, "more excited" against me than it 
had been, or "her views so greatly changed that she now sees things through 
an entirely diff"erent medium" from that through which she saw them, and 
which was the true one, she, with others — following them, and not leading, I 
am sure, and even, as I would believe, lending her name only in the matter, 
not foreseeing how far she was to be committed — has been the means of a de- 
famation of me that has been circulated through half the newspapers of this 
country, and given that opportunity for which the whole of the recent pro- 
ceeding to set aside my divorce originated — an opportunity, I mean, by which 
others might put on record matter wholly irrelevant to the issue — vitupera- 
tive on its face, meant to be defamatory only — and placed on record only 
that it might come before the world with the protection and air of a legal 
proceeding : I say, I hope that I shall be pardoned if at such a time, when 
the persons who were the originators and actors in the proceeding in which 
this woman appears as the ostensible head have for years, with the utmost 
activity of hostile exacerbation, been circulating in every town throughout 
the Union, wherein my name is known, such offensive libels as have been 
described in these pages, I shall on one occasion unseal my lips to self-justi- 
fication. It is a matter on which I have well interrogated, as I was bound 



[ 30 ] 

to interrogate, my honor and my conscience. One of my deepest re.2;ret8 is 
for this woman : her condition is much to be pitied : the necessary allusions 
to it which I have made have caused me much pain. It was her misfortune 
only. The fiiult, in attempting to make me the victim of it, was with others 
perhaps as much as with herself. In some senses perhaps more so. But 
when my character and peace and power of usefulness, for whatever residue 
of life (iod may yet be pleased to grant me, are assailed in this tierce and 
fiend-like manner, under a proceeding to which she gives the sanction of her 
name, and appears, to the world at least, to give the sanction of her action, 
by no principle of delicacy or of justice ought the true cause of all this trou- 
ble to be concealed, and another's calamity to be thrown with such terrible 
consequences on me and mine. 

IILIXS W. GRISWOLD. 
Gircu'd House, Philadclplda, May, ISoO. 



1 



Mr. Justice Thompson's decision refusing the motion to vacate the decree 
of divorce, was given on the 15th of March. It is as follows, (an omitted 
paragraph having nothing to do with the matters declared by the court to be 
in issue J : 

COURT OF COMMON PLEAS— THoMPSt^N, P. J. 
Gbiswold V8. Griswold. — Sur motion to vacate Decree of Divorce. 
This is a motion on the part of the respondent to vacate a decree of divorce alleged to have been 
onteivd l>y tliis court sometinie in the year 1S.')2. It isasserted that the libelant obtained thodecreo 
]<y iiicaiis of fraud and imposition upon the court. The application is based upon the inherent 
jiower of the court to protect itself from imposition; and tho right of the court to vacate a decree 
obtained by fraud is not iiuestioned nor denied. 

The reasons adduced upon the ar^iment to sustain the present motion are .so nnmerous, that it is 
somewhat dillicult to ascertain with precision the real grounds upon which the respondent claim.s 
(he aelioii of the court. They seem, howevor, to be comprised within the two heads, of collusion 
between the parties, or of fraud or imposition upon the court. 

It was strenuously urged, on the part of the respondent, that none of the proceedings in the case 
have been regular, that the cause stated in the libol was utterly untrue, and that the proceediugn 
were carried on while the respondent was kei)t in iirnorance of thi'm. That by this manner of con- 
ducting the case the libelant had imposed upon the court and fraudulently obtained a decree in his 
favor. 

These positions arc not, howefcr, sustained by (he evidence which has been submitlfd to us. It 
appears clearly by the written evidence, that the respondent had notice, not only of the intended 
ai)pliiation of the libelant before his suit was commenced, but that the subpa>nea, with a cojty of 
tho libel was served upon her, and that, relying on the advice of her counsel, (not lier prosout 
counsel,) she intentionally disregarded the notice, and permitted the cause to proceed, as it might, 
against her. It further appears by the respondent's own showing, ihatHjne of the dilllculties which 
embarrassed the case, aud prevented for a time any action of the court, was removed by her own 
declaration, made in lier own handwriting, and intend<^d by her to be used in order to remove the 
objection made to the proceeding. In this letter, which is now before me, having been discovered 
eince the argument, the respondent not only admits the truth of the complaint contained in the 
libel, that s.he left the libelant for reasons satisfactory to herself, but that her intention was not to 
return to him, and that her course was founded on that determination, which still continued leav- 
ing him at full liberty to pursue such legal measures as he might be advised to adopt. 

Prior to the appearance of this letter, testimony had been taken tx parte and submitted to the 
court. At a snbsotiuent period, certain other evidence was adduced, which, in connection with the 
letter just referred to, and with the fact that the respondent had full opportunity to take any de* 
fence tliat she might deem proper, safi^td the court that such grounds were pi-csetit^d as would 
JustiJ't/ the further action that ti nilcd t<> a final dcttrmination of the case. The many and gross 
charu'es which are now made against the libelant, and which the evidence taken upon this motion 
is adduced to sustain, all of which were as well known by the respondent before her declared ac- 
quiescence in the course adopted by him, as now, were neVer breathed by any one. The court was 
permitted to act, as though the case was in all respects fair aud free from any collusion or fraudulent 
design. It becomes, then, a question of serious import, whether under such circumstances a court 
ought to listen to the party who claims to impeach the proceedings, either upon the ground of col- 
lusion, to which, if it existed, she was a party, or of fraud which she knew of aud declined to 
expose. 

As to ttie alleged collusion, it does not satisfactorily appear that it existed in such form as to de- 
mand our action upon that gi-ound. The proceedings were commenced and carried on adversely 
with full notice to the respondent She was re(iuired to appear, but did not. The charge of deser- 
tion was distinctly slated in the libel filed, aud the truth of the charge was attempted to be sus- 
tained by evidence. Her declaration that the charge was true and the desertion presisted in, and 



I 31 ] 



that she had left the libelant to his legal remedies, cannot he regarded as collusion. A party to a 
suit who has a defence, but who chooses not to use it, cannot be said to collude with the party 
suing. He would not be listened to upon such a suggestion. Rights may be waived withoxit sub- 
jecting the party to any imputation. So a defence may be waived or a proceeding acquiesced in 
without any impropriety. 

But it is said, ou behalf of the respondent, that the letter written by her was obtained by force 
and fraud, and should be now disregarded. This, however, is not sustained by the evidence, nor 
by her ovjii statement in regard to it. It seems that the letter containing the declaration referred 
to, was written at the libelant's request, and upon his promise to permit his daughter to remain 
with the respondent, if she would write the letter. This was no coercion, and with every allow- 
ance upon the score of the affection entertained by her towards the libelant's daughter, it is cer- 
tainly not sufficient to justify or excuse the respondent, in thus stating, what her assertions now 
made would show to be grossly false and unfounded. The only reasonable explanation of this 
transaction is, that since that period her mind has become much more excited against the libelant, 
or her views so greatly changed that she now sees things through an entirely ditfei'ent medium. 
The affidavit of the libelant should not be regarded as evidence, and even if it were, we cannot 
perceive the justice or propriety of permitting a party who, by the suppression of facts, and by the 
assertion of the existence of contrary facts, has allowed action to be taken, by which the dearest 
interests of others have become involved, to take advantage of her own wrong in order to call such 
action in question. 

Neither have we been able to discover any such gross fraud perpetrated ujwn the respondent, or 
upon tlie court, as has been suggested on her behalf. The proceedings were commenced by the 
libelant upon full notice to the respondent, and carried on without any effort to conceal them. It 
may be that .some formal requisition or notice was not strictly complied with, but when it was 
expressly communicated to the respondent that without her admission of the truth of the charges 
alleged in the libel, the divorce could not be obtained, and she gave that admission, certainly the 
charge of fraud against her cannot be sustained. Nor is it perceived that the court has been im- 
posed upon by the libelant as far as we have been able to ascertain the action taken in the case. 
The case of the libelant loas sustained by lohat appp.arcd to the court to be adeqxiate testimony, 
and the objection of the want of siiflicieut notice to the respondent being removed by her admis- 
sion, we granted a rule on the libelant to show cause lohy a divorce should not be granted. Thus 
far we perceive no evidence of fraud or imposition ; no such allegation is sustained by adequate 
testimony. But it is alleged that prior to the granting of the said rule to show cause, an amended 
or supph'meutal libel was tiled by the libelant of which the respondent had no notice, and that 
additidiial testimony was taken under said .■supplemental libel. It does not appear whetlier the 
supplemental libel was ever brought to the consideration of the court, and the strange confusion 
which (^xists as to the rc'cords and papers tiled in tliis case, prevents us from ascertaining whetlier any 
action wliatever was had upon said supplemental libel. The charge contained in it was the same 
as tliat stated in the original libel ; the testimony alleged to have been taken under it, was address- 
ed to the .same facts and circumstances, as that which had been previously taken under the original 
proceeding. The supplemental libel had no etiect whatever upon the action of the court, if, indeed, 
it was ever brought under consideration, of wliich we entertain considerable doubt. The filing of 
this papfT, even without notice to the respondent, as it did not vary the charge, and produced no 
special action, cannot be c«n.sidered a fraud or imposition upon the court. 

Tho main ground, however, upon which we feel obliged to refuse the present motion, is the un- 
certainty which exists as to the fact of any decree of divorce having been entered by the court. 
There is uo entry of such decree either upon the minute book, or upon the m(^tion li.st of the court; 
nor do tlie docket entries in the case sht^w that such a decree was entered. Whether the papers 
originally tiled and the testimony and exhibit.s, which the rule of court requires to be annexed 
thereto before the case is submitted to the Court for its consideration, would show any thing in re- 
gard to the decree, we are entirely unable to say. By some strange fatality, incident, perhaps, to 
the mcinnt r in ivhich our records are kept, those papers have disappeared from the ojjice of our 
Prothonofary, and their contents cannot be supplied. The Judges have no recollection which 
would (Miable them to speak ou the sul)joct of the decree, further than of the fact, that they regarded 
the erideacc, as it ivas presented to Hum. as sujficicnt to entitle the libelant to the usual rule to 
show cause why a decree .should not be granted. It is, of cour.se, impossible to rely upon the recol- 
lection of counsel for that as to which our records arc silent, and when we find that there is nothing 
upon our record to show, that notice of the rule to show cause was ever served upon the resi>ond- 
cut, or advertised .so as to give notice of such rule, without which service or advertisement no de- 
cree Could be entered without a violation of our rule of court, it .seems to us that the preliminaries 
to the granting of a decree are entirely wanting. When it further appears that the rule referred to 
was not placed upon the list of motions, to be disposed of in the usual manner, the doubt as to the 
decree being made is so much increased, that we are compelled to take the only safe course, which 
is to regard that which does not ai)pear, as that which does not exist. We are informed by thejes- 
timony, that the libelant acted as though he had in his possession some evidence of a decree having 
been made in his favor. What that evidence was, we have not been informed, nor have we the 
means of ascertaining. It does not appear by any evidence, that even a certificate of the decree was 
given by the Prothouotary, nor if such a certificate was obtained, upon what it was founded. In 
this absence of all evidence of any proceeding beyond that which appears of record, we are com- 
pelled to decide that there is no sufficient evidence of a decree of divorce having been entered, and 
consequently the motion to vacate that which has not been shown to exist, cannot be sustained, and 
the rule must be dismissed. 

It is but due to the present Prothouotary of this Court to say, that he is not responsible for the 
absence of the proper records in this case, or for any defect in the entry of the proceeding, as the 
case occurred before he entered upon the duties of his office, and docs not appear to have been sub- 
ject to his supervision or control. 

The motion to vacate is, therefore, refused. 

Immediately after the reading of the above decision by Judge Thompson, the following action 
was taken : 
Griswold vs. Griswold. On motion of Mr. Cuyler, the court granted a rule to show cause why 



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y 32 ] "0" 016 117 402 5 

the record sliould not be perfected by the substitution of cop , ^.^-v vx tuc cuuieuis 

^S^roSn-^his motion, Mr. Cuyler expressed his satisfaction with the decision, which on every 
moral and le^al ground perfectly exonerated his client from censure. If a question as to the ex- 
istence of any decree of divorce had been raised during the argument of the case, the court would 
have been satisfied on that point without the least difficulty. The counsel, on both sides, however 
he said had considered this fact settled and entirely unquestionable. The defects of the record 
were of course in no way chargeable tu the libelant, nor should he be held responsible for the 
stran<'0 fatalities incident to the manner in which the records of the court have been liept." His 
clienr's dearest interests had at all times been involved in the preservation of the records of this 
case Mr Cuvler was happy, he added, in the conviction, that by the completion of the records, 
from" authenticated copies of the missing parts of it, this strange and unparalleled persecution was 
to be concluded, and the good fame and legal righto of his client completely vindicated. 



POSTSCRIPT. 

This pamphlet ^-as written and nearly printed two nmnths i\^o, and soon 
after the ])ul>lication of the above opinion, relievin«r me from the imputati(m 
of anj-nndue means in obtaining; a divorce. The publication of the piimphlct 
at that time would have <;ratified, no doubt, a morbid public ai>i)etite, and 
led to a much more extensive and interested readin«r of it, than it will 
now have. But such appetite I have not desired to gratify. And I have 
withheld the publication till such time as this unworthy easernes.s for a 
knoAvlodge of other people's private concerns, has passed away. I design 
it for those sober-minded persons — whether, my friends or otherwise — who 
take a sufiicient interest in the iruih of what has been broun;ht before the 
public, to read a statement on the subject with the same interest, now, as 
when it was "the talk of the town." to them I submit it. 



New York, June 9, 185G. 






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lllillliiillilllilliilillllliilliilL 

016 117 402 6 " 



